colonial religion and indigenous society in the...

COLONIAL RELIGION AND INDIGENOUS SOCIETY

IN THE ARCHAIC WEST MEDITERRANEAN: c. 750-400 BCE

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES

OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Lela Manning Urquhart

March 2010

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/fv818dt6086

© 2010 by Lela Manning Urquhart. All Rights Reserved.

Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

ii



http://purl.stanford.edu/fv818dt6086

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Ian Morris, Primary Adviser


Giovanna Ceserani


Richard Martin


Josiah Ober

Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.

Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education

This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file inUniversity Archives.

iii

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the question of how indigenous socieites in the west

Mediterrranean responded to colonial religion between 750 and 400 BCE and the role such

responses played in the socio-political development of the Mediterranean basin. Focusing on the

archaeological evidence from two case study regions in Sicily and Sardinia, it attempts to explain

the appearance of new religious elements at indigenous sites after 750 BCE. Building on

research on the role of religion in archaic Greek poleis, it argues that indigenous communities

integrated aspects of colonial religious material culture and practice that supported high levels of

social accessibility and collectivity in the community. These forms of religious expression were

used to resolve “coordination problems” posed by the new political, economic, and demographic

pressures of colonization. It concludes that certain forms of “colonial” religious expression,

most of which had parallels in Greek colonies and were absent from Phoenician colonies,

worked to the advantage of indigenous communities, particularly as they were drawn into

broader cultural and socio-political networks developing across the Mediterranean.

Chapter 1 introduces the scholarly background of the project, particularly as it relates to

postcolonial theory and studies of ancient religion. It also lays out three hypotheses that are used

as potential explanations for the patterns seen in the archaeological record of religious change.

The first proposes that the changes were part of a widespread process of cultural diffusionism,

while the second suggests that changes in indigenous religion were a function of the density of

colonization. A third hypothesis proposes seeing the changes as the selective integration of

particular features of colonial religion. The chapter also engages with the question of how to

study “religion” archaeologically and lays out a methodological tool-kit for the investigation of

religious change. This tool-kit centers on 13 material correlates that are then applied as a means

of heuristically organizing and quantifying the archaeological evidence for religious

development in the different case study regions.

Chapter 2 delves into the historiography of the “Hellenization versus postcolonialism

debate.” Postcolonial treatments of the ancient west Mediterranean have reacted against the

“traditional” Hellenization model, arguing that the latter was heavily biased towards the

perspective of (mostly Greek) colonizersl; they propose models of cultural change that instead

iv

stress fluidity, hybridity, and constructed meanings. Chapter 2 shows that, contrary to their

representation in the postcolonial literature, treatments of religious change hold a unique position

in the Hellenization historiography. It argues that even among the staunchest proponents of

Hellenization, religion was construed as traditional, actively resistant to colonial influence, and

sometimes influencing Greek colonial religion. It traces this historiographic trend back to a long-

standing interest in indigenous culture amongst European scholars whose roots, it argues, can be

seen as early as the sixteenth century. This exception in the historiography has been overlooked

and, consequently, the archaeological record for religious developments during the Archaic and

Classical periods has often been misread.

! Chapters 3 and 4 show that indigenous societies in Sicily (Ch. 3) and Sardinia (Ch. 4)

experienced a dramatic change in the material expression of their religious beliefs after

colonization (post-650 BCE). In Sicily, indigenous communities increasingly dedicated places

for the worship of the gods. Between 650 and 550 BCE, the form that these places took went

quickly from open-air ritual sites to built spaces, vacillating mainly between two architectural

types, curvilinear “hut-shrines” and rectilinear bi- or tri-partite structures. Chapter 3 argues

further that both the construction of spaces specially designed for ritual activity, and the

proliferation of certain religious practices-- sacrifice, feasting, and the dedication of relatively

modest votive goods--signal a major shift in the role of religious institutions within indigenous

communities. It then shows that around 525 BCE, many of the older strongholds of indigenous

ritual life and settlement started to decline while others grew tremendously. This pattern

continued into the fifth century BCE, in a process that strongly resembles synoikism.

Chapter 4 looks at how indigenous societies responded more specifically to Phoenician

colonial religion; framed another way, it functions as a test of whether the presence of Greek

colonists (and thus, Greek religion) was a necessary condition for particular types of religious

development. Precolonial Sardinian religious organization shows an unusual level of internal

consistency and visibility and appears to have been intricately tied up in the power structures of

nuragic society. Chapter 4 shows that Sardinian indigenous religious sites were increasingly

abandoned at roughly the same time that Phoenicians settled on the southern and western coasts

of the island. Signs of the integration of Phoenician religious material culture or practices are

v

rare, and for the few indigenous sanctuaries that continued into the late Archaic and Classical

periods, there is little concrete support for “Phoenicianization” or “Punicization.” Thus, where in

Sicily there seems to have been an increase in the visibility of and investment towards religious

behavior following the arrival of Greeks and Phoenicians, in Sardinia the opposite seems to have

happened.

Chapter 5 examines three Greek colonies in central-western Sicily--Himera, Selinus, and

Akragas-- and shows that each engaged in an extensive intrastate competition of temple-building

between 650 and 400 BCE. Investments in religious architecture were accompanied by a

growing standardization in religious practice, particularly in sacrificial and votive behavior. The

chapter argues that Greek religious evidence can be understood as the material expression of

community solidarity and the promotion of collective potential and of relative social equilibrium

and religious cohesion. It emphasizes, however, that smaller, more exclusive social groups were

embedded in the polis (and its symbolic forms of self-representation). It concludes that collective

efforts to monumentalize the sacred character of the cities belie significant fractures in the ritual

communities of each city, as evidenced both by the number of sanctuaries and the variation in

their material assemblages.

! Chapter 6 synthesizes the evidence from Phoenician sanctuaries in Sicily and Sardinia,

showing that there are significant disparities within the two regions even while an underlying

unity of religious concepts, practice, and symbolic iconography, particularly from the sixth

century on, seems to have existed. In comparison to the Greek settlements, Phoenician

settlements invested significantly less in religion, although individual citizens may have been

equally or more wealthy than their Greek counterparts. Chapter 6 argues that Phoenician

religious organization more strongly emphasized individual piety and that its material culture and

practice heavily favored the more exclusive participation of wealthier and high-status citizens.

Evidence for collective worship is less readily identifiable in the material record than at both

Greek and indigenous communities. Moreover, when it is identifiable, it seems to reiterate the

notion that inclusion in the “civic” body was determined by familial lineage and aristocratic

status.

The evidence presented in Chapters 3-6 shows that there were major changes in the

religious organization of west Mediterranean societies at the end of the Iron Age. Chapter 7

vi

returns to the three hypotheses that were set out at the beginning of the dissertation as possible

explanations for why indigenous societies responded to colonial religion the way that they did. It

shows that although both the conditions of the diffusionism and density of colonization theses

are met to some degree, neither of these two hypotheses fully explains the patterns in the

evidence, particularly as to why some parts of colonial religious material culture and practice

appear over and over again and others do not. To explain this part of the evidence, only the

selective integration hypothesis seems to work. The evidence also suggests that the material

culture and practices associated with Greek sanctuaries were integrated far more often than those

associated with Phoenician settlements. It is proposed that the reason for the differential

integration of Greek and Phoenician colonial religious elements lies in the preference indigenous

societies had for forms of expression that promoted communal cohesion, social accessibility, and

collective power, all qualities which have appear to have more correspondence with the ideals

and representational forms found in Greek colonial sacred areas than Phoenician.

vii

Acknowledgements

! I owe a wealth of gratitude to may people for their help, support, and general goodness in

completing this project and through all the phases of its construction. I want to thank in

particular, however, my advisor, Ian Morris, without whose guidance this project would have

hardly evolved the way that it did. His knowledge bolstered it from the very beginning, his

criticism kept it honest, and his support kept me sane. I thank him heartily for everything he has

done to help me with this and with all the other aspects of my graduate education. I’d also like to

especially thank Richard Martin, Josh Ober, and Giovanna Ceserani, who read several drafts of

the material and whose provocative questions alternatively inspired and challenged my thinking

about the material. They have been loyal reading committee members since this project was only

a proposal and their patience and support has been remarkable. Of course, any errors are solely

my responsibility.

! Thanks should also go to the faculties and staffs of both the Stanford Classics department

and the Stanford Archaeology Center. Their involvement in my education at Stanford has been

formative to the choices I made while writing and exposed me to a wide range of comparative

primary and secondary material from time periods and parts of the world outside the ancient west

Mediterranean. The staff members-- particularly Ryan Johnson, Alicia Sanchez, Margo Keeley,

and Lori Lynn Taniguchi-- are equally in my debt.

! A substantial part of this project addresses the question of how different groups create

bonds of community in situations of cultural interaction, demographic and political pressure, and

rapid social change. So, it seems apt that some of my greatest thanks should go towards the

colleagues and friends that I have had the good fortune of having throughout graduate school and

to the various communities of which I’ve been a part. My research benefitted in innumerable

ways from their input and by own well-being has been sustained by their friendship. Particularly

important to me have been my colleagues in the Classics department and Archaeology center,

the members of the Stanford Humanities Center in 2008-2009, the Fellows of the American

Academy in Rome in 2009-2010, and the many participants of the Monte Polizzo Archaeological

Project. Among these I should especially thank: Jason Aftosmis, Rachel Ahern Knudsen, Melissa

Bailey, Kathryn Balsley, Emma Blake, Meritxell Ferrer-Martin, Christelle Fischer-Bovet, Brien

Garnand, Emily Modrall, Martin Perron, Kathryn Lafrenz-Samuels, Joshua Samuels, Rob

Stephan, Matthew Tiews, Darian Totten, Nick Wilding, and Caroline Winterer.

viii

The care and humor given to me by the people who had to deal with me on a more

regular basis bolstered this project through its completion. For this, I will always be grateful to

Clara, Alexis, and Ben. Most of all, none of this would have been possible without the love,

encouragement, and wisdom of my parents, Helen and Burges. This work is dedicated to them.

ix

Contents

Abstract ivAcknowledgements viiTable of Contents xList of Tables xiiList of Figures xiiI. Introduction 11 Introduction 11 The argument 21 The case studies: Sicily and Sardinia 28 “Religion”: terminology and theoretical dilemmas 38 Theory and methods 48II. Indigenous religion and religious change in the Hellenization historiography 57 Introduction 57 The west Mediterranean in early scholarship 60 The 18th- and 19th-century scholarship: Hellenism, archaeology, and religion 66 The late 19th and 20th century: the development of Hellenization theory and the postcolonial reaction 76 Conclusion 97III. The Development of Indigenous Sicilian Religion: pre-700 BCE to 400 BCE 102 Introduction 102 The indigenous setting prior to 650 BCE 103 The funerary evidence 105

a. The Geloan hinterland 106b. The Salso and lower Himera valley area 109c. The Platani valley and the central interior 111d. The Belice valley 117e. Western and northwestern Sicily 118

The non-funerary evidence 120 Summary 123 The transformation of indigenous Sicilian religion: 650-400 BCE 124 650 to 600 BCE 125

600 to 550 BCE 135 550 to 500 BCE 142 500 to 450 BCE 153 450 to 400 BCE 160 Conclusions 164 IV. Religious developments in indigenous central-southwestern Sardinia, 950-400 BCE 171 Introduction 171 The indigenous setting prior to 750-700 BCE 173 Sulcis-Iglesiente 180 The lower-central Campidano 182 The upper Campidano and the Marmilla 184 The ‘Giara’ and the central interior 188 The Gulf of Oristano, the Stagno di Cabras, and hinterland 194 Summary 198 Indigenous Sardinian Religious Organization after 700 BCE 200 Conclusions 210V. Greek colonial religion in central-western Sicily: religion and the creation of colonial poleis 215 Introduction 215 Historical background and religious developments between 650 and 550 BCE 216 The “Age of Sanctuaries”: religious developments between 550 and 480/70 BCE 225 Religious developments between 480/70 BCE and the end of the fifth century 240 Discussion 247 Early developments 248

x

Levels of investment among Greek colonial sanctuaries 250 Conclusions 266

VI. Phoenician-Punic religion in Sicily and Sardinia 268 Introduction 268 Religious Developments in the Phoenician West 270 750-550 BCE 270 550-500 BCE 276 500-400 BCE 291 Conclusions 296 Indigenous responses to Phoenician religion 300 The socio-political context of Phoenician colonial religion 306VII. Conclusions 312 The variable “responses” to colonial religion in Sicily and Sardinia 314 Cultural diffusion, inference systems, and religion as evolution 318 Population and the density of colonization 321 Selective integration, coordination problems, and “polis” religion 329 The longer-term consequences of religious development: the 5th c. BCE 338 Conclusions 344Appendices 348Bibliography 352

xi

List of Tables

Table 1-3. The “framework of religion” used in the case-studies. 54

Table 3-3. Summary of evidence for religious developments in central-western Sicily, 650-400 BCE. 166

Table 5-1. Literary foundation accounts of Himera, Selinus, and Akragas. 217

Table 7-1. Population estimates of the major Greek and Phoenician colonial settlements in the case study regions. 327

List of Figures

Figure 1-1. Case study area of central western Sicily (highlighted in red). 29

Figure 1-2. Case study area of central south-western Sardina (highlighted in red). 30

Figure 3-1. Map of Iron Age Sicily. 105

Figure 3-2. Map of Archaic Sicily. 125

Figure 3-4. Appearance of altars among indigenous settlements in central-western Sicily, 750 and 400 BCE 168

Figure 4-1. Distribution map of indigenous Sardinian and Phoenician-Punic sites mentioned in the text. 173

Figure 4-2. Measurement of the number of indigenous sacred areas documented in central-southwestern Sardinia between c. 900 and 400 BCE. 203

Figure 5-2. Typological and chronological distribution of the assemblage from the North Quarter "Urban Sanctuary,” Himera. 227

Figure 5-3. Distribution of finds in the Malophoros sanctuary, Selinus, 550-475 BCE. 232

Figure 5-4. Distribution of finds in the Malophoros sanctuary, Selinus, 550-475 BCE. 232

Figure 5-5. Distribution of finds from Gate V sanctuary, Akragas, according to find-type and date, early sixth century BCE-400 BCE. 235

Figure 5-6. Distribution of finds from Eastern quarter sanctuary, Himera 650-400 BCE. 243

Figure 5-7. Finds from the Hekate complex in the sanctuary to Demeter Malophoros, Selinus. Fifth-century BCE. 245

Figure 5-8. Appearance of built sacred structures within the Greek and Phoenician colonies in central-western Sicily. 251

xii

Chapter 1

Introduction

This project is about religious change amongst colonial and indigenous

populations in the west Mediterranean from the eighth up through the end of the fifth

century BCE and the role such change plays in the socio-political development of the

Mediterranean basin. This period covers a major episode in standard constructions of

western history. After the collapse of Bronze Age palace systems in the eastern

Mediterranean around 1200, contacts that had been in place between the east and west

Mediterranean were disrupted. These contacts were partially re-established in the tenth

and ninth centuries BCE, but around 800 BCE they increased enormously in scale.

Between 750 and 600 BCE, groups of people from the Levant, Asia Minor, and the Greek

mainland started to establish colonies in the west Mediterranean. By the middle of the

sixth century, these groups had settled along large portions of the coasts of Sicily,

Sardinia, southern Italy, North Africa, Spain, and France, and some had begun to settle

their own secondary communities. By the fifth century, many of the original colonies

were major city-states in their own right, waging their own wars, settling their own

colonies, and fostering rich cultural environments that rivaled those of contemporary

eastern Mediterranean states.

In the eighteenth and especially the nineteenth centuries AD, this page of

Mediterranean history concerning ancient colonization was neatly integrated into a larger

historical narrative about the ancient Greeks and their relationship to the rise and

perceived superiority of western civilization. Modern European historians construed

ancient colonizers, and the Greeks especially, as the forerunners of modern imperialism,

as bearers of civilization for barbarian native populations and it was in these terms that

they rendered their assessments of ancient colonization. Central to this modern historical

narrative was the notion that contemporary Europeans were the direct descendents of a

superior ancient Greek culture, which they had attained via the mechanisms of

colonization and, significantly, the acculturation of native societies. In the late 1800s, this

11

acculturative process came to be designated by the term “Hellenization,” with many

claiming that Hellenization—that is, the acculturation of non-Greek, native populations to

a dominant Greek colonial culture—was the thing that had made everything else possible:

the rise of Rome, the spread of Christianity, and the eventual division of the

Mediterranean basin into Islamic and Christian worlds.

Religion and religious change was sometimes included in this broader model of

cultural development, but interpretations of it followed a somewhat different line than

other aspects of cultural change. Even odder has been the fact that studies of religious

change in colonial contexts have for the most part developed independent of studies of

Iron Age and Archaic Greek religion. In the Greek world, colonization and the

articulation of polis religion were both products of the late eighth century BCE.

Archaeological and literary studies of religious development in the Aegean have

contextualized the changes in religious organization that occurred during the late Iron

Age and early Archaic period within broader processes of Greek state-formation. Such

studies emphasize that the beliefs, rituals, and material culture of Greek religion “were

given their characteristic structure at the moment when one of the most distinctive forms

of Greek political organization was emerging-- the polis or city.”1 Yet, even though this

structuring would have coincided almost exactly with the initial periods of Greek

colonization, there has been little explicit effort to explore how this understanding of

Greek religion affects the interpretation of how indigenous and non-Greek groups might

have responded to it in the colonial context of the west Mediterranean. This oversight

seems particularly important since many studies of Greek polis religion have implied that

it was somewhat of a unique phenomenon, a tendency of recent scholarship that, if

unqualified, can potentially perpetuate older European claims of the more singular and

“special” aspects of ancient Greek society. If indeed Greek polis religion was so distinct,

what made it so and how would that affect groups with which it came in contact?

Ancient colonization, the concept of “Hellenization,” and the perception of an

inherently political character to Greek religion have all been central to nineteenth- and

12

1 Bruit Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1992: 6.

twentieth-century constructions of the modern historical narrative of western civilization.

Not surprisingly, these same things were less essential to models proposed by people

working outside of the Mediterranean, who instead emphasized broader evolutionary

theories about state formation and the transition from relatively simple hunter-gatherer

bands to complex ancient states. Such theories emphasized “in tandem” evolutionary

processes of political and cultural development in which groups relatively close to one

another were seen as following generally similar formative processes, ranging from the

emergence of agriculture to ranked societies to urbanization and institutionalization.2

David Clarke’s classic argument was widely hailed (and critiqued) as an effective model

for increases in social complexity in which “interactions between loosely related yet

politically independent entities give rise both to larger institutional units and to ethnic and

linguistic groupings which cross-cut such units.”3 Questions of cultural change and socio-

political development were central to these studies, with some of the most fundamental

theses stressing that in many situations in which rapid change seems to have affected

multiple groups in multiple areas, it is “illegitimate to attempt...to assign either

chronological priority or direction of [cultural] influence.”4

Evolutionary and processual models started to undergo heavy critique soon after

their appearance, but for the purposes of understanding the development of scholarship

on Archaic west Mediterranean, it is more important to highlight the fact their rather

limited impact on classical scholarship, including studies of ancient colonization. When

in this field of studies the reaction against the Hellenization narrative started to develop in

the late 1960s and then coalesced in the 1980s, it was not, for the most part, led by

evolutionists or processual archaeologists, but rather by scholars influenced by

postcolonial theory. Reeling from the collapse of British, French, and other European

colonies in Africa and elsewhere, some Classical archaeologists and historians began to

argue that the Hellenization model was basically a figment of the imperial imagination.5

13

2 E.g. Fried 1967: 232; Renfrew 1975; Clarke 1978: 363-408.3 Cherry and Renfrew 1986: 152.4 Price 1977: 210; see also Shennan 1982.5 Py 1965; Wachtel 1971; Pippidi et al. 1976; Gruzinski and Rouveret 1976.

They stressed instead ideas of colonial resistance and indigenous independence, motifs

that were also taken up to some degree in more economically-centered approaches to

colonization, such as in center-periphery models and in various formulations of

Wallerstein’s world-systems approach.6 In regards to the Mediterranean in the seventh

and sixth centuries BCE, postcolonial approaches argued that ancient colonial situations

were just as fluid and complex as those that were occurring in the twentieth century CE in

the wake of modern decolonization. Areas of ancient colonial interaction increasingly

came to be seen as places for contested meanings and hybridization, with Classicists and

ancient historians drawing on the broader anthropological and literary studies of scholars

like Homi Bhabha, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu, and Edward Said. Notions of

cultural and political assimilation were widely rejected and a much greater emphasis was

put on understanding the diversity of ancient “colonial” experiences.7

For some time now, almost all of the scholarship on the western Mediterranean

has been framed in terms of how it fits within this Hellenization versus postcolonialism

debate or, rather, dichotomy. Dichotomies take a lot of knocks, but as Gideon Shelach

reasons, they are not always bad things to work with:

The polarization of ideas [is] the starting point for many debates that, while generating a lot of heat, [are] at the same time an important source of light. Scholars on different sides of each of the theoretical dichotomies develop their own research agendas and methods...These debates have been fruitful in focusing attention on specific theoretical problems and eradicating simplistic assumptions.8

In the case of the Archaic west Mediterranean, the dichtomization of Hellenization and

postcolonial approaches to the evidence has, to use Shelach’s metaphor, set a fire under

scholarship on ancient colonization and has exposed, mostly for bad, the shortfalls of

earlier colonialistic literature. However, in many ways, to keep calling this polarization a

“debate” is somewhat misleading, even though much of the scholarship continues to

present itself as a “postcolonial reaction” against a hegemonic Hellenization discourse.

Certainly some elements of the early scholarship in which primitive natives were

14

6 Cf. Wallerstein 1974; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991; Gills and Frank 1992; Sherratt and Sherratt 1993; Frank 1993.7 This has been especially popular in the most recent postcolonial studies, but was already noted by Adamesteanu in 1976; see also Albanese Procelli 1996: 167-68. 8 Shelach 1999: 1.

contrasted with culturally superior Greeks, and then were integrated into an evolutionary

model have had a long life. In still current academic books one reads sentences such as

“the natives weighted their new prosperity, brought by the Greeks, against the sites and

land they had lost to them, and were generally satisfied.”9 Some scholarly areas,

particularly in studies of art and architecture, also seem to still not have moved very far

from a (mostly) Hellenizing perspective. In a fairly recent (2000) publication directed

mostly towards non-academic audiences, for example, the authors openly claim Moses

Finley’s 1968 book on Sicily as their main source and maintain a strict Hellenocentric

focus throughout the text; indigenous populations are almost never mentioned and there

are no bibliographic references to indigenous sites.10

Yet this style of scholarship, I would argue, is by now exceptional and for the

most part almost all of the current work on colonization engages on some level with the

interaction of colonial and native groups. Although one of the major drawbacks to this

new focus has been that colonizers and colonized continue to be shaped into a model of

“colonial dualism,” there has nevertheless been a “continuing retreat from

‘Hellenocentric’ archaeology,” according to Franco De Angelis.11 Since the 1980s, the

reaction against “colonialist” and “Hellenist” treatments of Greek colonization has been

great, as encapsulated by David Ridgway who in 1990 declared that, “‘primitivist’ is not

an adjective that I would willingly apply today to the Italian Iron Age.”12 The

“traditional” Hellenization paradigm, fossilized in statements such as, “The Sikels of the

Heraian hills, having Greeks on three sides, were in a favorable situation to receive the

benefits of civilization, and in time to suffer complete subjection,” is now regarded as so

obviously problematic and outdated that it does not seem to make much sense to continue

to use it to talk about a Hellenization debate.13

15

9 Boardman 1980: 198.10 Braccesi and Millino 2000.11 According to the work of Lombardo (1979), Van Dommelen (1998: 22-23), and Stoler (1989), in the dualist framework, colonizer and colonized make up monolithic, homogenous communities that exist without internal conflict and that remain stable, independent groups over time. See also De Angelis 2000-01: 145. 12 Ridgway 1990: 62.13 Dunbabin 1948: 129.

One of the key issues at the heart of the “debate” between Hellenization and

postcolonial approaches has been religion. I argue in Chapter 2 that treatments of

religious change have a particularly unique position in the Hellenization historiography,

mostly because religion was often an aspect of culture that even the staunchest

proponents of Hellenization thought remained more “indigenous” in the years after

colonization. I trace this historiographic trend back to a long-standing interest in

indigenous culture amongst European scholars, one that I argue we can see the roots of as

early as the sixteenth century. For various reasons, indigenous religion came to be

promoted as continuous, conservative and actively resistant to cultural change, even in

the face of a “dominant” colonial power and even while all other parts of the culture

changed. Giovanni Lilliu’s 1958 reading of the nuragic well-sanctuary epitomizes the

persistence of this stance:

The temple of the well...demonstrates, first of all and most especially, the spiritual and moral foundation of the country and land of Sardinia, in those remote times of our infancy, of which certain elements...endure, however, into the ethnological layer of the modern Sard. The rest is varnish, a guise, an attempt at opening up to the new, everything realized by the ancestral resistance. It can be said, without offence, that this resistance still continues today in certain ways, in spite of Roman civilization and Christianity.14

However, a rupture in this pattern occurred during the 1970s when a select group

of scholars rejected out of hand notions of either indigenous religious continuity or

colonial-indigenous religious syncretism.15 Günther Zuntz, believing that all western

Mediterranean ritual traditions stemmed from a Mycenaean Ur-religion, claimed that

“...not one of the Greek sanctuaries so far discovered has its foundations in a native cult-

locality...” while Erik Sjöqvist embodied an extreme version of the Hellenization

narrative in relation to indigenous religious practice.16 He claimed that, “The Sicels

transformed themselves rapidly and on their transformation became conformists. In the

fields of art and architecture, no traces of indigenous influence are revealed....In the

16

14 Lilliu 1958: 280-81. Il tempio [di pozzo]... dimostra, prima di tutto e sopratutto, il fondamento spirituale e morale del paese e della terra sarda, in quei tempi remoti della nostra infanzia, di cui certi elementi...durano tuttavia nello strato etnologico del sardo moderno. Il resto è vernice, apparenza, tentativo di apertura verso il nuovo, il tutto compresso dalla resistenza ancestrale. Si può dire , senza offesa, che quella resistenza, ad onta della civiltà romana e cristiana, dura ancor oggi, in certi fondi.15 Perhaps significant is the fact that this group was almost exclusively composed of northern Europeans.16 Zuntz 1971: 72.

religious and intellectual fields, as in the artistic one, the current seems to have flowed in

one direction only: from the Greeks to the Sicels, not vice versa.”17 The new assertion of

“Greekness” and “Hellenization” in the literature coincides almost exactly with the

emergence of early postcolonialesque studies of indigenous settlements and Greek-

indigenous interaction in southern Italy and Sicily; in many ways it seems that the

acculturation of indigenous religion to Greek models only became a concrete part of the

hellenization argument after postcolonial critiques of the more general Hellenization

model had already begun. Postcolonial scholars subsequently subsumed the more recent

treatments of religion under broader and earlier nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

Hellenization models, without acknowledging that earlier formulations of Hellenization

actually made more of an exception for religious change.

In their introduction to the second edition of The Post-colonial Reader, Bill

Ashcroft and his colleagues comment that,

The sacred has been an empowering feature of post-colonial experience in two ways: on one hand indigenous concepts of the sacred have been able to interpolate dominant conceptions of cultural identity; and on the other Western forms of the sacred have often been appropriated and transformed as a means of local empowerment. Analyses of the sacred, however, have been one of the most neglected, and may be one of the most rapidly expanding areas of post-colonial study.18

But, for ancient Mediterranean historians and archaeologists, “the sacred” and religious

material culture have been, for some time now, quintessential pieces of evidence in

postcolonial interpretations of cultural change, in studies of both the “colonial” and the

“indigenous” material. For the colonial side of things, the postcolonial perspective has

affected studies of west Greek temple architecture, of the relationship between mother-

cities and colonies (both in general and in regard to religion more specifically), and the

re-interpretation of literary records of religion in terms of narrative discourse.19

Postcolonial analyses have also increasingly included Phoenician colonization (although

less often religion). In studies of indigenous developments, religious material culture

often epitomizes postcolonial arguments for hybridization, bilateral cultural exchange,

17

17 Sjöqvist 1973: 68.18 Ashcroft et al. 2006b: 8.19 E.g. Mertens 1996; Fischer-Hansen 2002: 176; De Angelis 2003b: xiii-xiv; Antonaccio 2005: 110; Di Vita 1990; Londey 1990; Dougherty 1993;

and the continuity of indigenous cultural traditions.20 Tamar Hodos, for example, has

argued that a shrine found at the indigenous site of Sabucina exemplifies the “Middle

Ground approach” through its mix of Greek and indigenous religious attributes.21

Similarly, Rosa Maria Albanese Procelli has argued that religious spaces were both places

where indigenous traditions persisted into the Greek era and examples of the indigenous

adaptation of new cultural forms to pre-existing native structures.

Michael Dietler summarizes the contributions of postcolonial scholarship succinctly:

Increasingly, as theoretical insights from the historical anthropology of colonialism and postcolonial studies have begun to make inroads, there has been an attempt to break down the somewhat monolithic dichotomies that informed earlier conceptions of colonists and natives, and to examine the transformative cultural and social effects of the colonial process on Greek and Phoenician settlers and traders as well as on native peoples.22

It is clear that the attention towards a non-Greek, non-colonial, “indigenous” perspective

has compensated for and corrected many of the biases of the past. The entire notion of

pre-modern colonization has been thoroughly deconstructed and problematized, and the

current literature has done well to insist on the contingency and complexity that

characterize the cultural patterns of the ancient period. Intellectual and ethical

discussions outside of Classics (and academia more generally) and within the field have

made finding the right vocabulary a real dilemma as well.23 Typical descriptive terms

such as “indigenous” or “native” have come to be seen as both anachronistic to the

ancient situation and imbued with negative and paternalistic overtones when used to

describe non-settlers.24 Similarly, the use of “colonial,” “colonists,” or “colonization” to

describe the process of groups of settlers arriving in different parts of the Mediterranean

has been construed as perpetuating older, prejudiced models of “active” colonizers and

“passive” natives.25 More and more scholars, moreover, have insisted that to talk about

18

20 Tusa 1983: 136; De Miro et al. 1996; Antonaccio 1997; 2005; Leighton 1999; De Angelis 2003a; 2003b; Albanese Procelli 2003: 213, 221; Hodos 2006: 127-56; 21 Hodos 2006: 128; for other explicit references to “middle ground approaches” in Sicily, see Antonaccio 2003, 2005; De Angelis 2003a: 37; Malkin 2005.22 Dietler 2005: 276.23 Anaya 2004: 3-5. Jansen (2005: 235-37) provides a useful summary of contemporary reactions against “internal colonialism” among “indigenous peoples” in North and Central America.24 Hodos 2006: 25; more generally, Achebe 2006: 74-75.25 Morel 1984; Osborne 1998: 256.

“indigenous” and “colonial” groups is to essentialize the very diverse groups that were

involved and to treat both groups (and especially the “indigenous” peoples) as

homogenous and static entities.26 This deconstruction of formerly canonical

terminological taxonomies has extended to the use of cultural or ethnic labels. Classicists

emphasize that the notion of a self-conscious “Greek” identity developed significantly

later than the original settlement of “Greeks” in the West, thus making the whole idea of

“Greek” colonization among “indigenous” populations problematic or even irrelevant, at

least until the mid-sixth century BCE.27 As Carol Dougherty and Leslie Kurke

emphasized in the introduction and title to their volume, The Cultures within Greek

Culture, “Greek culture, like all others, was comprised of many disparate subgroups or

subcultures, whose identity and existence were constantly shifting and realigning, whose

rituals, beliefs, and practices alternately competed and collaborated.”28 This seems to be

less the case in treatments of Phoenician-Punics, although other issues such as the

classification of Phoenician colonial settlements (e.g. apokia, emporia) have become

more mainstream concerns.

In this project, I want to contribute to this collective effort at understanding the

impact of colonization, but I want to do so by shifting the focus of analysis somewhat. I

first want to throw some critical light on a new dichotomy that is defining the field of

ancient colonization studies: instead of the old “Greeks vs. natives” paradigm, we now

face a dichotomy of Hellenization versus postcolonialism. In the subsequent chapters, I

argue that the scholarship has increasingly been looking at the material in these black and

white terms, but that neither model effectively explains the changes that can be observed

in religious material culture and practice among indigenous, Greek, and Phoenician

communities in the west Mediterraenan following colonization. I make this argument

because in many ways, both the Hellenization and more recent postcolonial treatments of

religious change can appear impressionistic, treating the details of the evidence

superficially, and using vague definitional concepts, most notably in the application of the

19

26 E.g. Snodgrass 1994: 2.27 Hall 2000; 2005; McInerny 2001: 54-55, 63; Malkin 2005: 59.28 Dougherty and Kurke 2003: 1.

term “religion.” Most importantly perhaps, because of the very legitimate concerns

postcolonial approaches have had with correcting the unfair and sometimes perverse

biases of the past, they tend to downplay what many would argue is the contradictory

evidence, that is, signs of the reception of Greek material culture among indigenous

communities. This has been the case even when the original excavation reports are

explicit in their references to at least partial adoptions of Greek material culture. Juliette

de la Genière alluded to the “profound hellenization” of Segesta, and Vincenzo Tusa

noted that some “assimilation” of Greek cultural models occurred among indigenous sites

in west Sicily, although he insisted that such assimilation “never assumed the character of

mere transcription or transfer.”29 Narrow “Hellenization” models do not accurately depict

the ancient situation; that much is sure. But, the failure to adequately account for the

ways in which Greek religious material culture and practices were integrated into

indigenous society and the lack of attempts to explain why both severely risk

undervaluing the overall significance of indigenous responses to colonization and

religious developments in particular.

Almost thirty years have passed since the first fully “postcolonial” approaches

appeared in Classical scholarship. As commonly happens in academic research, the

passage of time and continuous reflection on the issues that originally concerned the field

have resulted in the institutionalization of the research programme itself. It would be too

simple and sweeping a generalization to say that postcolonial approaches, having

triumphed over the “evil” forces of imperialism, racism, and western-centrism, have met

the ends they set out to accomplish. As Graham Huggan recognizes, “Postcolonial

studies...needs to be alert to the complicities with the world-system it affects to critique.

It seems fair to say, however, that most scholars working within the field are only too

aware of these complicities.”30 Self-criticism and interrogation has played a less

prominent role in postcolonial studies of the ancient material, the main consequence

being that some of the drawbacks to postcolonial approaches have not been

systematically critiqued in the literature. The time has, I think, arrived for examining the

20

29 De la Genière 1983: 270-71; Tusa 1983: 313-14.30 Huggan 2001: 229.

various approaches more objectively and pointing out some of their flaws without

detracting from the duly-lauded contributions that have been made.

The argument

To assess the validity of the standard Hellenization and postcolonial models, and

to move beyond them, requires a more precise understanding of how indigenous societies

in the western Mediterranean responded to colonization over an extended time frame. In

the following chapters, I try to answer this question by reversing the standard approach to

studying the impact of colonization. Rather than trying to fit the evidence for all of

indigenous culture into a single theoretical model, I proceed from the ground up, taking a

single aspect of “indigenous culture” and charting its long-term development both up to

and after Greek and Phoenician colonization. Religious material culture and practices

have been at the center of the “debate” between Hellenization and postcolonial

approaches to the ancient material, and thus there is great incentive for studying

developments within them more closely. They also hold great informative potential,

particularly for discussions of long-term cultural and sociopolitical change. Religious

practices and institutions are commonly understood as arenas in which people are able to

express and debate social and political behavior. In discussing his definition of religion as

a cultural system, for example, Clifford Geertz wrote that, “In religious belief and

practice a group’s ethos is rendered intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent

a way of life ideally adapted to the actual state of affairs the worldview describes.”31 At

the same time, “the world-view is rendered emotionally convincing by being presented as

an image of an actual state of affairs peculiarly well arranged to accommodate such a way

of life.”32 From a Geertzian perspective, changes in religious practice and expression

have the potential to be interpreted as a reflection of larger and more structural changes in

society.

Archaeologists and anthropologists interested in explaining religious change have

often traced their arguments back to more systemic developments in “culture” that arise

21

31 Geertz 1966: 4.32 Ibid.

from increases in social complexity or adjustments to the way that humans interact with

their physical environments. For some scholars, the shift towards religious development

begins with the most fundamental aspect of human existence, that is, cognition. Religious

developments--particularly of the material variety-- are a consequence of evolved human

intelligence and as such, as Day contends,

The broad spectrum of rituals, relics, scriptures, statues and buildings typically associated with religious traditions are no longer seen as mere ethnographic icing on the computational cake. Rather than thin cultural ‘wrap arounds’ that dress up real cognitive processes going on underneath, they begin to look like central components of the relevant machinery of religious thought....Without these elaborate layers of cognitive technology the gods would be, to one degree or another, unthinkable.33

Other studies have been less apt to focus on the psychological underpinnings of

increases in social complexity, choosing instead to look at how religion functions in

tandem with the choices that individuals make in order to interact with one another and

identify themselves in groups. Lewis Binford for one made the well-known argument that

material objects of symbolic or ideological value develop and diversify in

correspondence with shifts in social makeup.34 And in the west Mediterranean, some

Bronze and Iron Age scholars have found theories of social evolution, particularly as it

appears in ritual contexts, useful.35 Anna Bietti Sestieri’s study of the Latial cemetery at

Osteria dell’Osa, for example, used burial ritual to chart changes in social structure from

clearly defined familial groups with sharp age and sex divisions in the ninth- and early

eighth centuries to a situation in which various familial lineages seem to be competing

over claims of social priority. This competition, Bietti Sestieri claimed, gave rise to the

Latial gens of the Archaic period and, importantly, to the leaders of each gens. The

emergence of these social categories also coincided with the establishment of Greek and

Phoenician footholds in southern Italy. The elites of various communities took advantage

of the new trading relationships that were offered by these new arrivals and stronger

communities started to materialize within Latium. Certain settlements were particularly

22

33 Day 2004: 116-17.34 Binford 1962: 219-20.35 Bietti Sestieri 1992; Bietti Sestieri and Santis 2000: 23-25. Social evolutionary approaches have also been applied to other parts of the Mediterranean as well; see, for example, Giardino 1992 for Sardinia; Stottart et al. 1993 for Malta; and Leighton 1997 for prehistoric Italy and Sicily.

poised to exploit the increasing connectedness of peninsular Italy, a situation that is

nicely reflected by the rise of Rome from the late eighth century on.

The situation in Latium and other parts of the Italian mainland may be more

widespread. Greater population density and the increased demand for solutions to

demographic and political pressures was something that affected nearly all parts of the

west Mediterranean during the Archaic period. Consequently, it is not too outrageous to

think that indigenous societies in the area would continue to “develop” in social

evolutionary terms, particularly after the Phoenicians and Greeks made an appearance on

the scene. Social evolutionists would also say that more pronounced religious expression

would be a fairly predictable consequence of conditions ushered in by colonization.36

Their explanations are less able, however, to predict the specific types of religious

material culture that would both develop and endure.

Throughout this dissertation I argue that indigenous responses to colonial religion

were the material expressions of competing social ideologies that arose soon after the

arrival of Greeks and Phoenicians in the west Mediterranean. I make this argument

through a comparative analysis of two case studies in Sicily and Sardinia. Most studies of

religious developments in these areas have concentrated on single time periods and often

only single sites. This lack of temporal and regional context tends to obscure the radical

changes that did occur, with the result that the complex organization of indigenous ritual

traditions are often overly simplified. In addition, temporal and regional patterns and

variations across the west Mediterranean get overlooked. For this reason, the case study

regions are studied over a time frame that begins in the period before colonization and

unfolds over two centuries after colonization.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide an overview of the main

motivations of the study and to lay out the interpretive framework that I use to examine

the evidence. In the rest of this chapter, I outline my rationale for the choice of the two

case-study regions, the terminological and theoretical problems associated with

researching something like “religion,” the methodology I use for making this comparison,

23

36 Cf. Flannery 1972: 403-4.

and the main aspects of religious change that we must try to account for. Because the

bulk of the period between 750 and 400 BCE is “pre-” or “proto-historic,” most of the

evidence I use is archaeological. In order to avoid the pitfalls of relying on implicit

definitions, I attempt to make explicit my working definition of “religion” using a

framework of material correlates. In Chapters 3 through 6, this framework is then applied

to the data of the four different “groups” in question: indigenous Sicilians, indigenous

Sards, Greeks, and Phoenicians. There is an inherent risk of essentialism in labeling and

examining these very varied populations this way: these groups were defined by

significant internal divisions, and they changed dramatically over time. The boundaries

between them were also fluid and the ways in which they identified themselves are

sometimes not all that clear to us, particularly for the early phases that I consider.

Nonetheless, I believe that they remain helpful analytical categories, particularly for

organizing a very rich and varied body of evidence. In fact, as I show in both case study

regions, by grouping the material into these rough categories of “Greeks,” “Phoenicians,”

“Sicilians,” and “Sardinians”, the regional disparities that exist within the groups become

actually more pronounced. For the purposes of making a comparative argument as well,

using “lump” categories allows for more far-reaching similarities and differences to come

to the surface.

I show that indigenous societies experienced a dramatic change in the material

expression of their religious beliefs after 650 BCE. In Sicily, indigenous communities

increasingly dedicated places for the worship of the gods. Between 650 and 550 BCE, the

form that these places took went quickly from open-air ritual sites to built spaces, largely

vacillating between two architectural types, curvilinear “hut-shrines” and rectilinear bi-

or tri-partite structures. I argue further that the construction of spaces specially designed

for ritual activity and the proliferation of certain religious practices-- sacrifice, feasting,

and the dedication of relatively modest votive goods--in these Sicilian sites signals a

major shift in the role of religious institutions within indigenous communities. I then

show that around 525 BCE, many of the older strongholds of indigenous ritual life and

settlement start to decline while others grow tremendously. This pattern continues into the

24

fifth century BCE, in a process that I argue looks strongly like synoikism. Religious

developments in Sardinia were almost diametrically different. Nuragic Sardinian

religious organization prior to the arrival of the Phoenicians religion shows an unusual

level of internal consistency and visibility and appears to have been intricately tied up in

the broader political structure of nuragic society. At roughly the same time that

Phoenicians settled on the southern and western coast of Sardinia, nuragic communities

began to undergo significant changes in social structure as evidenced by signs of a newly

emerging elite. From 700 BCE on, older religious sites in Sardinia were increasingly

abandoned, as were many of the settlements in the coastal hinterlands; there is also an

overall decline in the evidence for ritual activity in nuragic communities. Signs of the

integration of Phoenician religious material culture or practices are even more rare. For

the few religious sites that have produced Phoenician imports, their presence seems to be

attributed to an overall desire for the dedication of luxury (instead of Phoenician-specific)

goods. Isolated finds of Phoenician materials at older nuragic sanctuaries in the sixth

century BCE suggest that some nuragic sites were being refashioned for Phoenician cult

activity, but this was a somewhat limited phenomenon. In addition, it would be difficult

to make the argument that these sanctuaries were “Phoenicianized” nuragic sites based on

the lack of clearly indigenous settlements in the vicinity. Thus, where in Sicily there

seems to have been an increase in the visibility of and investment towards religious

behavior following the arrival of Greeks and Phoenicians, in Sardinia the near-exact

opposite happened.

Chapters 5 and 6 contrast the religious developments of indigenous Sicilian and

Sardinian communities against contemporary developments in the Greek and Phoenician

colonies. In Chapter 5, I show that the Greek colonies of Himera, Selinus, and Akragas

engaged in an extensive intrastate competition of temple-building between 650 and 400

BCE, particularly after the mid-sixth century BCE. The investments made in religious

constructions were also complemented by a growing standardization in religious practice

among the Greek sites, particularly in sacrificial and votive behavior. I use the evidence

to argue that the developments in religious architecture and practice of the Greek colonies

25

in Sicily show significant gains in the expression of community solidarity and the

promotion of collective potential. I then suggest that these rituals symbolically leveled

the social differences that likely existed between the participants, thereby promoting the

perception of relative social equilibrium and religious cohesion. I emphasize, however,

that smaller, more exclusive groups existed simulataenously in the colonies. The

collective efforts to monumentalize the sacred character of the cities, I believe, belie

significant fractures in the ritual communities of each city, as evidenced both by the

number of sanctuaries and the variation in their material assemblages. I also compare the

material from the Greek colonies to that of the Sicilian and Sardinian indigenous

communities directly, showing that certain elements of Greek religious material and

culture have close correspondences with the material in the Sicilian sanctuaries, and far

less in the Sardinian sanctuaries.

In Chapter 6, I gather the evidence for Phoenician religious developments from

sites in Sicily and Sardinia, showing that there are significant disparities within

Phoenician religious material culture and practices of the two regions, even though there

seems to be an underlying unity of religious concepts, practice, and symbolic

iconography, particularly from the sixth century on. I argue that in many ways,

Phoenician colonial religious life was much more regular, internally coherent, and

organized than that of the Greek colonies, but that this does not seem to have affected the

degree to which indigenous communities integrated Phoenician religious material culture

and practices; signs of integration, based on parallels in the religious material correlates,

are very few and seem tied to more “general” qualities of religious activity (the existence

of sacrifice, acts of votive dedication) instead of specific to Phoenician colonial religion

per se.

Chapters 3 through 6 thus constitute a synthesis of material from indigenous and

colonial religious sites in Sicily and Sardinia that has, in large part, been scattered

throughout countless site reports, brief notices, and local bulletins. Students must still sift

through dense, hard-to-obtain, and badly organized reports to find out even the most basic

information, such as the number of sanctuaries in a city or their chronological phases.

26

The more weighty consequence of such logistical problems is that most studies of

religious development in the west Mediterranean have, up until now, lacked any thorough

empirical underpinning.

Syntheses are, in and of themselves, worthwhile and often necessary enterprises

and they certainly make the lives of subsequent scholars a lot easier. They often,

however, teeter on the brink of turning into laundry lists of details, descriptive masses

without any intrinsic interpretive value. Clifford Geertz emphasized that the richest

interpretations of religion were also the “thick”-est. By “thick” he meant not an

accumulation of detail, but rather an interpretation that wove together a composite picture

from what were often quite pixelated pieces of evidence. In addition, as Richard Martin

observes, thick descriptions take into account “the intentions, frameworks, relations,

behaviors, and other stratified ‘structures of signification’ surrounding social action.”37

Thus, throughout the chapters and especially in chapter 7, I try to tie the synthesis of

archaeological material to the historical and social context that we know of from

epigraphic, literary, and iconographic sources. I argue that the material record for

religious development in the west Mediterranean shows an extensive response to the

material culture and practices that were in place in the Greek settlements by indigenous

communities and a significantly less notable one to those of the Phoenician settlements.

This argument challenges recent “postcolonial” studies of the west Mediterranean

because it emphasizes that that there are, in fact, signs that Greek religion had a greater

“impact” on indigenous societies than Phoenician religion that are archaeologically

observable. In addition, it also argues that when the evidence is examined from a long-

term perspective--that is, starting before the “colonial” period and extending beyond the

standard sixth-century cutoff-- it becomes increasingly difficult to not see the evidence as

supporting some type of “Hellenization” process.

I do not make this argument provocative just for the sake of being provocative.

Making the case that Greek colonization and religion had a significant impact on the

religious developments of indigenous communities does not mean a reversion to old,

27

37 Martin 2008, 329.

imperialist paradigms and it does not mean that scholars like Dunbabin and Boardman

were right; clearly they were not. It does mean, however, that their question about why

the Greeks had such impact has to be put back on the table. There have been countless

good things in the postcolonial scholarship of the past twenty years but there have been

bad things too, and obscuring this important question is one of them.

The case studies: Sicily and Sardinia

In order to answer this question more effectively, I propose three hypotheses for

explaining why we see the changes in religious material culture and practice among

indigenous communities and I carry out the hypotheses-testing via the two case studies in

Sicily and Sardinia. Referring to the variance and fragmented, episodic nature of the

literary sources related to western Greek settlement, A.J. Graham commented that, “The

history of the Greeks in Sicily and southern Italy down to 500 B.C. is hardly at any point

a connected story.”38 This lack of connection is even more noteable when the history that

is concerned is one of colonial presence in the west Mediterranean overall. The histories

of Sicily and Sardinia are, in many ways, only minimally linked for much of the

prehistoric and early historical periods, and the ways that indigenous societies responded

to colonization were very much locally conditioned. Recent studies have emphasized that

the “political and ethnic untidiness of the Mediterranean” can upset attempts to build a

cohesive narrative about the west Mediterranean as a whole.39 As Hodos points out,

“While broad studies such as those from the perspective of a global economy or

acculturation have provided useful models for our study of the nature and impact of the

colonial movements of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean, it has become clear that the

generalizations they encourage can be deconstructed on a more localized level.”40

In some ways, the extreme focus on localized responses has obscured the forest

for the trees. This tendency is partially due to the different questions being asked by

archaeologists and ancient historians; archaeologists tend to celebrate the multiple

28

38 Graham 1982: 163.39 Horden and Purcell 2000: 25.40 Hodos 2006: 23.

permutations of material culture, while ancient historians are often forced by the nature of

their sources to concentrate more on commonalities and historical processes based on the

lack of detailed evidence. Archaeological studies that do not address the issues broader-

scale patterns, though, often fail to give an adequate reason for why we see the patterns

that we do in material culture. At the same time, historical studies that do not account for

the diversity of material and local responses often risk perpetuating outdated models.

Clearly there is need for work that can balance both the historical and the archaeological

agendas.

In this project, I try to integrate detailed archaeological study of “local responses”

with questions about the long-term historical evolution of the west Mediterranean. A case

study approach to the evidence is one of the better ways of doing this. The areas under

consideration in this project are central-western Sicily and central-southwestern Sardinia

(Figures 1-1 and 1-2).

Figure 1-1. Case study area of central western Sicily (highlighted in red).

29

Figure 1-2. Case study area of central south-western Sardina (highlighted in red).

Although other regions such might prove valuable case studies as well, these areas are

particularly useful for the questions that I want to answer. I am centrally concerned with

the differential responses of indigenous societies to the settlement of Greeks and the

Phoenicians and their religious systems; for this reason, I chose Sicily (a place where

both Greeks and Phoenicians settled) and Sardinia (a place where only Phoenicians

settled). Central-western Sicily has both Greek and Phoenician colonies (primarily

Akragas, Selinus, Himera, Motya, Panormus, and Solunto) and an extensive occupation

history-- local groups inhabited the area both before and after the colonizing activities of

the eighth century BCE. In addition, excavation of sites in this area has been a rather

recent phenomenon, taking off especially since the late 1950s when Vincenzo Tusa

started to dig at the indigenous site of Segesta in western Sicily. Because many of the

excavations are so recent, they have been more apt to implement new archaeological

methods such as faunal study, archeobotanical research, and geomorphology. These new

methods have in turn revealed data that pertain to a broader range of religious practices.

The number of sites, their publication, and their methods are not small matters-- in order

to make a statistically significant study, the data has to surpass a quantitative threshold.

This area provides such a quantity, even if it is sometimes only in rough forms. For these

reasons, central-western Sicily offers a good place for investigating indigenous religious

30

developments over time and for testing Hellenization and postcolonial models against the

evidence.

The case study of southwestern Sardinia functions as a foil to some of the more

widely accepted explanations for why indigenous communities in other parts of the

western Mediterranean responded to Greek culture in certain ways, mostly because in

Sardinia there were no Greek colonies. Anthropological approaches, for example, have

tended to see the changes in west Mediterranean indigenous societies as part of a process

of widespread diffusionism that moved largely from the eastern Mediterranean to the

western half, and generally affected change through a variety of different mechanisms

mainly achieved through either trade or population movements. Diffusionist research

originated in the middle of the nineteenth century as a means of understanding the nature

of the distribution of human culture across the world, and particularly in the issue of how

different cultural groups progressed from primeval conditions to states.41 The English

scholar Grafton Elliot Smith (1871-1937), for example, embodied one of the more

extreme diffusionist positions, arguing that Egypt was the source culture from which

arose many other ancient civilizations.42 Other diffusionist theories focused on concepts

of Kulturkreise in which culture “traits” diffused not as isolated elements, but as a whole

culture complex.43 In North American studies, the notion of "culture areas" found an

especially receptive audience after 1895 following an article that Otis T. Mason wrote

entitled “Influence of Environment upon Human Industries or Arts” for the American

Smithsonian.44 Mason identified eighteen American Indian "culture areas," and proposed

that tribal entities were grouped on an ethnographic map and related to geographical

aspects of the environment. The thesis was later refined in work by Clark Wissler and A.

L. Kroeber in his publication of Cultural and Natural Areas.45

31

41 Kuklick 1996: 161.42 Smith 1928; 1931: 393-394.43 Froebinus 1898; Graebner 1903; Harris (1968) and Winthrop (1991) discuss some of the historiographical issues of diffusionism theory.44 Mason 1895.45 Wissler 1917; Kroeber 1948, in which acculturation featured as a key mechanism of the diffusion proposition.

Gordon Childe’s 1925 publication of The dawn of European civilization is often

considered the epitome of the diffusionism wave of scholarship that developed in the

early twentieth century, particularly in archaeological and anthropological circles. It was

also one of the more sophisticated ones. In the book, Childe combined the idea of

diffusionism with Gustaf Kossina’s concept of prehistory as a montage of archaeological

cultures, while at the same time rejecting Kossina’s arguments for the biological

superiority of an Indo-European master race.46 By adopting a culture-historical approach,

Childe was able to better account for geographical variance in the archaeological record

than earlier generations of evolutionists or straightforward diffusionists, demonstrating

that “culture” required both local innovation and regional and “pan-human” levels.47 As

Rouse has noted, Childe’s book provided a model for the culture-historical approach to

European prehistory that was set to dominate archaeological studies around the world for

three decades further.48 For the rest of his life, Childe stressed the active role that

diffusionism played in the creation of a universal cultural heritage and the benefits that

humanity as a whole had reaped because of the spread of cultural technologies and shared

human knowledge.49

Diffusionist explanations imply that similar changes in religious practice should

have occurred across the west Mediterranean at generally the same time. Diffusion may

be simply defined as the spread of a cultural item from its place of origin to other places,

while a more expanded definition depicts diffusion as the process by which discrete

culture traits are transferred from one society to another, through migration, trade, war, or

other contact.50 Accordingly, in the case of Sicily and Sardinia, the same types of changes

should have occurred in religious practice and expression after indigenous groups came

into contact with colonizing groups. Yet, as I show in Chapters 3 and 4, this is far from

what happened. Sicilian and Sardinian groups respond to the presence of colonizing

groups in vastly different ways, and the inroads that Phoenician and Greek forms of

32

46 Childe 1927 [1925]; Trigger 1992: 11-14.47 Trigger 1992: ibid.48 Rouse 1972.49 Childe 1933; 1942: 16-17.50 Titiev 1959: 446;

religious material culture and practice make into indigenous communities vary

considerably. However, as Gordon Childe liked to say, this is exactly the point of what the

diffusionism thesis does and why its limitations are actually useful: it sets up

expectations. The point of testing theory against reality is to learn when the expectations

are confounded. Thus, if and when we find that indigenous societies respond differently

or that Greek and Phoenician religion do not appear to have equal impacts, we have to

ask why.

Another explanation for the responses of indigenous societies could lie in the

density of colonization, a phrase by which is meant the number of colonists in a given

area. Demographic studies of the west Mediterranean have not always explicitly

acknowledged potential causal relationships between the density of colonization and

patterns of cultural change among indigenous societies during the Archaic period. But,

many of them certainly imply that this relationship existed and that socio-political and

cultural developments among indigenous societies were somewhat dependent on both the

size and expansion of colonial populations. Early demographic studies like Julius

Beloch's discussion of the population history of Sicily and Magna Grecia were largely

focused on quantifying the number of Greek colonists, although he also included

numbers for indigenous and Phoenician populations as well.51 Beloch suggested that by

415 BCE, about 300,000 Greeks were living in Sicily at that time.52 More recently, De

Angelis has suggested that the maximum carrying capacity of Greek colonial territories

was 1.2 to 1.6 million people at a very bare subsistence level, whereas the actual

population may have numbered about 600,000.53 Pounds alternatively assigned 350,000

Greeks to Sicily.54

Walter Scheidel has argued that it is possible to approximate the number of

original Greek migrants by backwards from the figure of 450,000 to 600,000 Greeks

33

51 Beloch 1886: 261-305.52 Ibid.: 276, 298. Beloch counts 130,000 Greeks living outside Syracuse and Akragas, perhaps 80,000 in Acragas and another 80-100,000 inside of Syracuse.53 De Angelis 2000: 138-39. Scheidel (2005: 132) notes that it is unclear how many of these would have descended from Greek immigrants, but that a 75% share would be compatible with Beloch’s maximum total of Sicilian Greeks.54 Pounds 1973: 54.

present in all of Italy by 400 BCE.55 Estimates of the number of colonists involved in the

original settlement of individual colonies have varied significantly. In his account of the

foundation tale of Cyrene, for example, Herodotus (IV.153) suggests that the original

migrating body consisted of some 200 settlers. In contrast, the cemeteries of Pithekoussai

have been taken to point to a population of between 5,000 and 10,000 between 750 and

700 BCE, a somewhat shockingly large number. As Scheidel rightly notes, “Isolated and

questionable bits of data such as these are a poor foundation for global estimates.”56

Chapter 7 looks more closely at demographic measurements of Greek and

Phoenician colonists in the west Mediterranean, drawing on the work of Scheidel, De

Angelis, Mogens Hansen, and others. The case studies allow for the argument that

developments in indigenous religion were tied to the density of colonization in several

ways to be posed as a hypothesis and tested appropriately. In Sicily, it is possible to

propose separate measurements of Greek and Phoenician colonization as well as

calculation of colonization overall. In Sardinia, the question is somewhat different, since

it mostly involves a null hypothesis for the claim that indigenous responses to colonial

religion were dependent on the density of Greek colonization in particular. Any change

among indigenous populations in Sardinia that is to be attributed to “colonial” influence

would be due to the Phoenicians alone. This question thus allows us to look more closely

at the nature of the contact between Phoenician and indigenous communities as well as

possible distinguishing features between Greek and Phoenician religious practices.

Finally, postcolonial approaches have often argued that indigenous responses

should be understood in terms of hybridity, the mixing of different religious elements that

reflect the interactive social and cultural climate of colonial contexts. In its original

formulation, “hybridity” mostly alluded to local societies who blurred and transgressed

colonial categories of culture in order to produce “ambivalence” amongst the colonizing

group and to wield a tool for power and subversion amongst local cultures.57 The

relevance of “hybridity” or “hybridization” to the settings of Sicily and Sardinia has been

34

55 Scheidel 2005.56 Ibid.: 133. The inability to identify the extent of colonial-indigenous intermarriage further complicates these estimates (cf. Shepherd 1995).57 Bhabha 1985: 110; Ibid. 1992: 66.

recently questioned, although mostly for the fact that it sometimes can still render

“colonials” and “locals” in dualist terms. I am more concerned with the term’s less formal

usage, which in the archaeological literature has come to reflect any situation where there

is a mixture of different cultural elements. For example, Peter van Dommelen contends

that the clearest instance of hybridization across the Phoenician, Punic, and Roman

periods in Sardinia is a well-sanctuary at Cuccuru s’Arriu, a site near the modern city of

Cabras-Oristano in western Sardinia. “A more appropriate label than ‘hybrid’ is hard to

find to characterize the multiple background of the rituals performed, the objects used,

and the place occupied in one and the same context,” he goes on to say, referring back to

his description of the site as “an instance of local invention, in which both Nuragic and

Punic elements were creatively combined into a new and specifically local tradition.”58

If hybridization is an apt description for indigenous “responses” to both

Phoenician and Greek religion, though, we should expect two things. Because

hybridization insists on local invention and the general transgression of forms of colonial

culture, we should expect to see forms of both Greek and Phoenician colonial culture

being manipulated and undermined by the local societies with whom they had contact.

Proximity to one or the other “colonial” group should play some role, but over extended

case areas, we should see things roughly in balance. The second thing we should expect is

a mostly random distribution of all the different parts of the colonial religious system

being hybridized. This is particularly the case for the situation of Iron Age-early Archaic

Sardinia and Sicily because, as many scholars have insisted, local, Greek, and Phoenician

forms of identity were inchoate, unfixed, and show indications of significant internal

diversity.59

The major problem with “hybridization” is that neither of these conditions are met

in the evidence for religious development among indigenous groups in Sicily and

Sardinia. I argue that instead of a random distribution of all forms of religious material

culture and practice, there are significant patterns in the appearance of specific religious

elements among local groups. In the Sicily study alone, practices and material culture that

35

58 Van Dommelen 1998: 214, 204-5.59 Antonaccio 2003: 60-61; Hall 2003: 104-10; Albanese Procelli 2006.

have precedents at the Greek colonial sites are far more frequent than those found at

Phoenician sites and especially those religious features that are exclusive to Phoenician

sanctuaries, such as tophet ritual, Phoenician iconography, large elevated altars, and even

specific forms of Phoenician mobile material culture (e.g. pottery, glass, ornaments). If

the Sicily study is then compared to the Sardinia analysis, then the differences become

even starker. Nuragic (“indigenous” Sardinian) sanctuaries decline in the period after the

arrival of the Phoenicians, slowly at first and then almost completely by the end of the

sixth century, only reappearing in the later fourth and third centuries BCE. Not only do

indigenous Sards not “hybridize” Phoenician religious culture, they also seem to reject it

completely. Cuccuru s’Arriu, one of the “hybrid” archetypes for Sardinia, can only be

called that with certainty 450 years after the original Phoenician settlement of Tharros,

located only 8 kilometers away.

To explain why this seemingly greater response to Greek religious practices came

about, we need a different hypothesis. In chapter 7, I propose that there were systemic

differences in the socio-political character of Greek and Phoenician religious

organization. I show that the religious material culture and practices of the Greek

colonies were rooted in the ideology of the polis, privileging rituals and modes of

religious expression that seem to promote the collective character of the city and open

religious participation for citizens. At the same time, however, the number of sanctuaries

and the variation in more specialized types of practices among the sanctuaries points to

potentially significant fragmentation in the ritual communities of the Greek colonies. The

religious material culture and practices of the Phoenician colonies, on the other hand,

seem to stress the role of the individual and downplay expressions of communality.

Monumental religious buildings never took off in the way that is seen in the Greek

colonies (or in the indigenous settlements either) and many Phoenician sanctuaries seem

explicitly designed to keep the performance of ritual largely out of sight.

These differences suggest, I argue, that religious activity functioned quite

differently in the socio-political makeup of Phoenician and Greek colonies. I also propose

to use these differences as a way of explaining the differential reception they had

36

amongst indigenous communities. In the rapidly changing social environments of the

colonial west Mediterranean, indigenous communities used religious material culture and

practices to debate the different ways that the community would take shape. In the years

that followed colonization, communities had an increasing number of options from which

they could choose for expressing their relationship with the gods. These options included

the ritual traditions of the past which, when more fully expressed, centered on votive

dedication and sacrificial behavior around tombs or, more generally, the notion of

ancestral worship. But, they also included the variant ritual practices and modes of

expression that were introduced by new groups of people who were settling among them.

It is outdated archaeological practice to assume that the presence of cultural goods

is equivalent to the presence of people, but it also does not seem far-fetched to assume

that at least some of the indigenous materials that appear in the lower levels of Greek

sanctuaries in Sicily and Phoenician sanctuaries in Sardinia can be treated as signs of

indigenous participation in these colonial sanctuaries. In fact, studies ranging from the

early nineteenth century up to the most recent times have insisted upon this, emphasizing

the role of sanctuaries in bilateral cultural exchange. My argument, however, is that

although the recognition that colonial-native interaction existed is absolutely necessary, it

is not the most important question at hand.60

For understanding the longer-term implications of this interaction and for duly

recognizing the significance of religious change, we need to understand what these local

societies took away from their interaction with colonial groups and how they used those

experiences to make strategic choices about their own mode of religious organization and

expression. I propose that we can understand the increasing appearance of “Greek”

religious material among indigenous communities in terms of how it offered better

solutions than both Phoenician practices and indigenous ritual traditions for solving the

37

60 I do not deny here the potential influence of indigenous communities upon colonial religions; in fact, in Chapter 6, I argue that a significant feature of Phoenician colonial religion seems to be their choice of places that had previous indigenous significance. I do, however, find most arguments for indigenous influence on Greek colonial religion to be not entirely convincing. De Angelis (2003a) has been one of the few scholars to address this directly, but even here the attribution of Greek colonial ancestor worship to indigenous influence seems to stretch the colonial evidence too far and does not recognize the institutionalization of tomb worship among the Greeks prior to colonization in the Aegean.

cooperation problems that indigenous communities were increasingly facing. In these

ways, this hypothesis openly recognizes local agency and the active choices that

indigenous communities made in the construction of colonial society while also

accounting for the repetition in the evidence for the adoption of certain elements of

colonial religious culture.

“Religion”: terminology and theoretical dilemmas

To talk meaningfully about the religion of another culture is not easy, and requires of us some degree of tact and imagination. We need to be aware of the pitfalls. To begin with, it will seem all too clear that what we are dealing with is a human invention, a 'fiction' constructed by men for their own purposes-- an interpretation which we can never quite give to the religion of our own culture, even if we have rejected it. To make that assumption will not help us to understand though it may boost our sense of superiority. And secondly, there is the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of avoiding thinking about someone else's religion as a kind of exercise in 'decoding,' in translating myth and ritual into a 'natural' language (our own, of course) in which these things can be made to yield their true sense, which may be hidden from those who carry out the rituals and who recount the myths.61

One of the major problems with both “Hellenization” and “postcolonial”

interpretations of religious developments is that there has generally not been enough data

that can be used to adequately assess the two models. Moreover, the data that exist have

often not been of very high quality. Perhaps the greatest consequence of these problems

in data availability is that scholars rarely try to quantify “religious change,” and we are

thus left with only somewhat vague impressions of how to characterize indigenous (and

colonial) religious developments. The case studies, as I explained above, will allow for

both the accumulation of more data and a fuller re-evaluation. To do this, however, any

assumptions of what “religion” is need to be made explicit, while a methodological tool-

kit must be subsequently laid for its investigation.

The study of religion as a discrete academic discipline took place primarily during

the mid-nineteenth century as part of a general reconfiguration within secondary

education.62 As study began to specialize by discipline, the study of “religion” diverged

from its institutionally theological background through what George Chryssides and Ron

38

61 Gould 1985: 1.62 See Morris 1993; Ibid. 1994 for more detailed treatment of these shifts in relation to 19th-century Britain; Marchand 1996 for developments in Germany.

Greaves have nicely termed a process of “methodological agnosticism.”63 These

institutional transitions allowed religion to become a topic of investigation for a variety

of fields and, as a result, by the mid-nineteenth- to early twentieth-century there were a

number of overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, approaches to the study of religion.

The number of scholarly approaches to and definitions for religion is thus vast and

confuses any straightforward discussion of ancient religious change. Greg Woolf

helpfully summarizes some of the issues at hand:

Religions have been studied through many different paradigms...Each paradigm carries with it an implicit ranking of evidential categories, a ranking that answers some or all of the following questions: Is myth a better guide to the religious logic of society than the means by which religious authority is established? Are rituals more important than sacred texts? Is the present tense of religion more important than its history? Are worshippers’ experiences more central than the pronouncements of religious specialists? At stake in these choices is the category of ‘religion’ itself.64

One way of dealing with this diversity is to simply ignore it and carry on with the

analysis. Another, and better, way, I think, is to adopt some of the methods used by social

scientists for studying sociological “concepts” by looking at what each of the most

significant approaches to “religion” has tried to do.65 Doing so allows us to see that of the

many approaches to religion that exist, most of them conform to one of either two

overarching but fundamentally antithetical perspectives. First, that religion is a definable

concept; and second, that it is distinctly not. The first perspective was initially given its

most concrete form in the work of Weber and Durkheim and entails seeing religion as a

cross-cultural and cross-historical category that can be explained in terms of a general

theory. The second, more postmodern perspective critiques such approaches for their

functionalism, ahistoricism, generality, and/or separation from power structures. It

opposes attempts to define religion, with perhaps its most well-known proponent, Talal

Asad, contending that, “there cannot be a universal definition of religion, not only

because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because

that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes.”66 Other scholars

39

63 Chryssides and Greaves 2007: 40.64 Woolf 2005: 128-29.65 As laid out by Gerring 2001: 65-69.66 Asad 1993: 29; responding mostly to Geertz 1966.

since Asad have similarly contested the very notion of defining what is, in their eyes,

intractable and irrational.67 Paolo Xella has argued that the question “What is religion?”

presupposes a type of tangible existence for religion complete with structural

characteristics and an ontological consistency that scholars have the duty (and ability) to

identify.68 He suggests that the compulsion to “define” is typical of western society and is

a consequence of a specific historical development— “plasmata in primis dal giudeo-

cristianesimo e debitrice a una concezione “teistica”—cioè a una particolare idea di “dio”

formatasi storicamente—che ci proviene essentzialmente dalle tre grandi religioni

monteistiche (Giudaismo, Cristianesimo e Islam).”69

Finally, despite the predominance of these two perspectives across most fields, a

third perspective has prevailed among historians. Historians of religion have generally

faulted the underlying tenets of both perspectives, arguing that each fails to understand

religion in terms of actual religious experience.70 Their point is valid, but by

concentrating on specific actions and beliefs within a limited historical context, historians

have in their own turn overlooked the benefits of broad comparisons and have

conceptualized religion as overly idiosyncratic. Archaeologists are thus in a tricky

position. They certainly want to interpret ancient religious practice true to historical fact

and they certainly do not want those interpretations to be driven by Western constructs.

Their necessary reliance on silent artifacts rather than the observations and written reports

of religious participants, however, makes it difficult to interpret the material evidence

related to religious activity and belief without a general theory of religion that is then

linked to material correlates. This is especially the case when the question at hand is how

to interpret changes in “religion” or “ritual” or “sacred” organization and compare such

changes across different societies.71

40

67 Cf. Insoll 2004: 7; Xella 2006: 368 Xella 2006: 4.69 Ibid.: 4-5.70 As shown by Morris 2000.71 I knowingly conflate these terms in order to emphasize their semantic overlap and the difficulty in distinguishing them in the ancient archaeological record.

Comparisons assume some level of sameness between the variables being used in

the analysis. We may be comparing apples with oranges, but they are all still pieces of

fruit. Comparative studies of religious developments are, obviously, more complicated

than a trip to the grocer, but in some ways the metaphor still applies. To compare the

“religions” of different societies assumes that something identifiable as “religion” does

indeed exist and that it is distinguishable to some degree or another from other parts of

human life. These assumptions were not seen as problems in early religious scholarship.

Even before Weber and Durkheim, studies of the nineteenth and early twentieth century

were generally rooted in the idea that religion had an underlying universal character.

Many of these studies were, in fact, directed towards identifying what exactly that

universal character was. Evolutionist scholars, for example, often framed their

understanding of religion in terms of evolutionism, mostly through the lens of the “Myth

versus Ritual debate,” an essentially chicken or egg discussion over the primacy of either

myth or ritual in religion and at its heart, an assertion about the origins of religion proper.

Whether one believed that religion came from a single source (such as in Müller’s

paradigm of Indo-European poetry or James Frazer’s theory that all ritual stemmed from

a universal belief in the death and resurrection of a god or divine king who symbolized

agricultural fertility and acted to secure the welfare of the people) or that all religious

systems followed a similar evolution in belief and practice (such as in E.B. Tylor’s three-

stage progression from totemism to polytheism to monotheism), the common

denominator was the belief that it was possible to make a universalizing statement about

the nature of religion. In studies of ancient religion, credence in religion’s universal

qualities allowed evolutionist scholars to analogize ancient belief and practice to the

religious systems of modern, but still “primitive,” societies.

Intellectualist approaches to religion had a wider following among classical

scholars. Like evolutionist approaches, most intellectualist studies did not question the

notion of “religion” per se; rather, they stressed that religion and its world of beliefs was

etiologically distinct from “society” and they argued that the cornerstone of religious

scholarship lay in identifying the “sacred.” The concept of “the sacred” had one of its

41

earliest incarnations in Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in der Idee des

Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen (1917).72 Drawing on Müller’s earlier

notion of the numina, Otto defined “das heilige” as that which is numinous, simply

translated as “belonging to a supernatural entity”. The numinous, he explained, was a

“non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is

outside the self” or “wholly other.” In addition, Otto sourced the numinous to a sense of

mysterium tremendum et fascinans, which he understood as the feeling that religious

believers experienced in the face of divine power. As Thomas Lawson and Robert

McCauley have noted, Otto’s explanation and method of investigation both presumes and

demands a priori religious experience.73 Otto, for instance, invited his reader to

...direct his mind to a moment of deeply-felt religious experience, as little as possible qualified by other forms of consciousness. Whoever cannot do this, whoever knows no such moments in his experience, is requested to read no farther; for it is not easy to discuss questions of religious psychology with one who can recollect the emotions of his adolescence, the discomforts of indigestion, or say, social feelings, but cannot recall any intrinsically religious feelings.74

Forty years later, Mircea Eliade solidified the intellectualist demand for the

separation of secular and sacred in his seminal work, The Sacred and the Profane: the

nature of religion. Eliade diverged from Otto by covering “not the relation between the

rational and non-rational elements of religion, but the sacred in its entirety.”75 Eliade

again defined the sacred in terms of its “wholly other”, which he saw being the profane.

The awareness that allows one to distinguish between the sacred and profane, he argued

further, is due to the act of manifestation of the sacred, termed hierophany. A hierophany

involves “something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our

world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural ‘profane’ world”.76 These two

aspects—the sacred and the profane—were seen as constituting two modalities of

experience that had developed historically by man and subsequently defined all of human

42

72 Printed in English as The Sacred and, alternatively, The Idea of the Holy in 1923.73 Lawson and McCauley 1990: 14.74 Otto [1917]/1958: 8.75 Eliade 1959: 10.76 Ibid.: 11.

experience.77 Once again, there was a universalizing slant to how religion was

characterized and the sacred-profane dichotomy was taken as a given for the way that all

societies structured religious organizations.

The adoption of more sociological understandings to religion signaled a

significant change in the history of religious scholarship. Although earlier studies like

that of Fustel de Coulanges in 1864 and of William Robertson Smith in 1889 had brought

the social implications of religious worship to the foreground of their work, Émile

Durkheim’s interpretation of religious worship in terms of its relationship to social

organization and the collective spirit of society dramatically shifted the focus of religious

scholarship in the early part of the twentieth century. Durkheim defined religion as “a

unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set

apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community

called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”78 Religious beliefs, a key term in this

formulation, were recognized as “collective representations” that expressed both the

structure and the dynamics of the determined group. The group, however, also defined,

made up, and structured these collective representations. Moreover, beliefs were

perpetually renewed through their “enactments”—also known as practices or rituals—on

both the individual and communal levels. The driving principle of Durkheim’s definition,

then, was that religion was nothing more nor less than society transfigured (i.e.

symbolized, represented).

Like many of his predecessors, Durkheim was at heart an evolutionist-- for,

indeed, his quest was one for the “elementary” forms of religious life-- and his

understanding of religion framed it as a universally-applicable theory. He was much

clearer than others, however, that one could not trace “religion” or social phenomena

more generally to a single beginning and he consequently sought more the conditions and

“ever-present causes upon which the most essential forms of religious thought and

practice depend.”79 Durkheim’s aims are one of the main reasons for why he believed,

43

77 Ibid.: 14.78 Durkheim 1995 (orig. 1912): 44.79 Ibid.: 20.

unlike some of his contemporaries, that one did not have to be a “believer” to understand

the religious worship of other societies. Most importantly, though, Durkheim’s definition

of religion relied on being able to identify “religion” through a system of classification

rather than through a specific belief system. With Durkheim, his students, and then the

structural-functionalists who followed, the older bifurcation of “sacred” and “profane”

into mutually exclusive domains was complicated and, in later scholarship, openly

rejected.80

Durkheim’s chief weakness, as has been widely noted, lay in the lack of attention

he gave to historical change.81 This was one of the utmost contributions of Max Weber’s

work on religion, published earlier than Durkheim’s Elementary Forms, but surpassing

Durkheim’s influence more in the second half of the twentieth century. Weber was greatly

concerned with the role of religion in the formation of modernity, and is perhaps best

known for identifying the notable affinity between Protestantism and capitalism, a

correlation that has, of course, been relentlessly debated since its appearance.82 Michael

Lambek situates the two scholars nicely:

With Weber there is no recourse to universalistic evolutionary, functional, or determinist schemes; he is historical through and through. Furthermore, he no longer takes religion as an essence to be uncovered and defined from the bottom up, as it were, but is rather concerned with the relationships between religious factors (ideas, practices, institutions, and forms of authority) and economic and political processes.83

Weber was centrally concerned with historical contingency and, more specifically, with

how given religious formulations and the relationships between social classes that they

encourage gave rise to transformative social action. Because of these concerns, Weber’s

approach was inherently, and rigorously, comparative. As Weber himself said, he “always

underscored those features in the total picture of a religion which have been decisive for

the fashioning of the practical way of life, as well as those which distinguish one religion

from another.”84

44

80 E.g. Mauss 1990/1925; Malinowski 1926; Radcliffe-Brown 1952/1929; Parsons 1968.81 Stephen Lukes (1972), and Robert Bellah’s article in P. Smith and J. Alexander’s (2005) edited volume both give excellent and balanced analyses of the scholarly contributions and drawbacks of Durkheim’s study of religion.82 Weber 1904-05.83 Lambeck 2002: 50.84 Cited in Gerth and Mills (eds) (1946: 294) from the original 1915 essay.

Weber significantly influenced the development of the cultural-symbolic approach

to religion, which developed largely after 1960 and has become perhaps the most widely

used interpretive model in the study of religion up through the present day. The work of

Clifford Geertz is primarily responsible for the crystalization of the approach in

anthropological and religious studies more generally. Geertz proposed that religion be

studied as a cultural system, that is as:

(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.85

In his definition Geertz placed great weight on the meaning of symbols and the ability of

those symbols to instill in religious believers a sense of where they belong in the

universe. Religion, as a cultural system that models relations between entities and

processes by “paralleling” or “imitating” them, gives meaning to social and psychological

realities by shaping those realities to itself while concomitantly shaping itself to those

realities. In doing so, this set of symbols produces an image of the world that accounts for

problems and ambiguities in the human experience. Geertz insisted that a religion, like all

symbolic systems, must affirm something.86 He wrote, “Man depends upon symbols and

symbol systems with a dependence so great as to be decisive for his creatural viability

and, as a result, his sensitivity to even the remotest indication that they may prove unable

to cope with one or another aspect of experience rises within him the gravest sort of

anxiety”.87 Religion, Geertz claimed, must attempt to cope with events that challenge the

human assumption that life is comprehensible and to establish some level of conviction

about the world order.88 The question of how and why people buy into—“believe in”—

this order is, however, the more profound question. Geertz explained that, in his terms,

religious belief involves “not a Baconian induction from everyday experience..., but

rather a prior acceptance of authority which transforms that experience.”89

45

85 Ibid.: 90.86 Ibid.: 98-99,87 Ibid.: 99.88 Ibid,: 99-104.89 Ibid,: 109.

Reception of Geertz’s “religion as a cultural-symbolic system” has varied, but

there is no question that his approach to both religion and culture more generally has

been enormously influential within anthropology and beyond.90 In regards to religion,

one of his great contributions was to look at religion as a response to the world, and as

such, how it was conditioned by its local culture. John Gould took this approach in “On

Making Sense of Greek Religion,” describing how Greek religion offered a framework of

explanation for the human experience and a set of responses for dealing with threats to

the perceived world-order.91 Ancient Greek society and religion, Gould argued, had to

deal with a much higher and more constant level of Geertzian “chaos,” thus making the

Greek religious experience very specific to ancient Greek culture and furthermore,

fundamentally different from those of modern religions. Because Gould translated

“chaos” to mean the precariousness of ancient Greek life, he also saw Greek ritual and

myth as modes of religious response to the very difficult and often daily experiences of

ancient life. In this framework, then, the “bizarre,” “uncanny” behavior, and more

traumatic experiences were all symbols of divinity or divine acts.92

There is, however, the risk of conflation here, both in Gould’s application of

Geertz’s theory to Greek religion and in the cultural-symbolic approach to religion more

generally. The cultural-symbolic approach was supposed to refocus scholars on the

semiotic and cultural specificity of religious practices and concepts. Yet, as Asad has

pointed out, Geertz’s own applications often ignored historical conditions and leaned

towards universalizing statements, even as Geertz recoiled at the implication that he was

constructing grand theories or generalizations.93 The cultural-symbolic approach argues

that all religions—as sets of symbols—explain problems and ambiguities in the human

experience. The problem with this assumption, however, is twofold. First, the drive to

explain “problems” or “bizarre” events is not equally pressing everywhere (not to

46

90 See, for example, Asad 1983: 237; 1993; Gould 1985: 5-14; Levine 2005: 24-27; Zemon Davis 2005: 40-43.91 Gould 1985: 2-5; it should be noted that Gould is rather inconsistent as to whether Greek religion is the system of responses or offers a set of responses. 92 Ibid.: 7-9.93 Asad 1983: 237-39; Geertz 2000: 135.

mention the fact that classifications of “bizarre” are not universally the same). And

second, explanations provided by religion are not at all like ordinary explanations. The

evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer has elaborated on this observation, describing

how routine explanations 1) use information that is available; and 2) rearrange the

information to provide a more satisfactory view of what happened. The point of an

explanation, he claims, “...is to provide a context that makes a phenomenon less

surprising than before and more in agreement with the general order of things. Religious

explanations often seem to work the other way around, producing more complication

instead of less...religion creates ‘relevant mysteries’ rather than simple accounts of

events.”94

Other objections exist as well, one of the most significant being that cultural-

symbolic approaches divorce the cultural meaning of religion from its social context.95

Geertz’s separation of cultural and social meanings, some have argued, neglects the role

of power in the creation of religion and ignores how varying social conditions produce

different authoritative (religious) discourses. In contrast, Asad has contended that, “social

disciplines are intrinsic to the field in which religious representations acquire their force

and their truthfulness. From this it does not follow that the meanings of religious

practices and utterances are to be sought in social phenomena, but only that their

possibility and their authoritative status are to be explained as products of historically

distinctive disciplines and forces” (bold added, italics original).96

I think there are problems to Asad’s critique; the fact that abstract notions like

“power,” “authoritative discourses,” and “social disciplines” are only vaguely attached to

concrete observations, for instance, detracts from his argument. Even so, many parts of

his appraisal are still justified; Geertz does not, in any thorough way, address how certain

religious symbols (which include concepts, practices, prayers) acquire not simply

acceptance, but authoritative and proscriptive force. This omission seems particularly

significant since “the prior acceptance of authority” (explicated as ranging from gods to

47

94 Boyer 2001: 14. 95 Asad 1983; Ibid. 1993.96 Asad 1993: 251.

totemic principles, or the spiritual efficacy of cannibalism, or even “a dazzling perception

of power”) is crucial to Geertz’s configuration of religious belief and religion.97

At its heart, objections to the cultural-symbolic approach echo the same

complaints that have followed other attempts to build general theories of religion. For

archaeologists, the paradox remains: we do not want to assume the universality of

religious experience or structure or even its existence, particularly for ancient societies.

Yet without any basic guidelines, we are unable to identify it in the archaeological record.

As Lars Fogelin concludes in his endorsement of seeing “ritual” in symbolic terms,

“There is no reason, a priori, to assume that prehistorians cannot study ancient

symbolism and belief. The question remains, however, how best to study symbolism

within the material confines of archaeological research.”98

Theory and methods

A. What name then will mortals give to them?B. Zeus bids [us] to call them the holy Palici.A. And does the name of the Palici remain well chosen?B. Yes, for they have returned from the darkness into the light.

Saturn. 5.19.24 = F 6 Rach

The literary record for colonization in the west Mediterranean is late, scanty, and

skewed towards the perspective of Greek colonizers. The literary record for religious

change in the context of colonization is almost non-existent and what does exist is part of

a complex system of Greek colonial discourse that appropriated indigenous culture as a

way of legitimizing the Greek presence in a foreign land.99 The four lines above were

reproduced by Macrobius as a record of Aeschylus’ Aetnaeae. They allude to a pair of

Sicilian deities called the Palici who had a sanctuary on Mount Etna and Aeschylus was

said to have provided them with a Greek etymology (Palici means ”those who have

returned” in Greek) and genealogy, since the Palici were supposed to have been born of

the nymph Thalia after she was impregnated by Zeus. As Carol Dougherty argues, “In

good colonial fashion, the Greeks have adapted Sicel legend so as to adopt the Palici into

48

97 Geertz 1973: 108-09.98 Fogelin 2007: 63.99 Cf. Dougherty 1993; Malkin 1998.

their own mythological family. In addition to etymologizing the name, the foundation

myth itself, as Aeschylus is said to have told it, hellenizes local tradition.”100

Understanding indigenous responses to colonial religion must thus come from the

archaeology. As discussed above, two main obstacles stand in the way. First,

archaeological studies require some sort of framework for interpreting the material record

for religious worship. Second, interpreting indigenous responses to colonial religion

assumes that we are able to compare the two. Previous studies of religious developments

in the west Mediterranean have often left the criteria that are used to compare indigenous

and colonial ritual organization implicit. Ingrid Edlund’s study of Etruscan and Greek

sanctuaries is commendable for the attention it gives to indigenous societies, but it was

only able to do so because it took for granted the issue of whether there were similarities

between Etruscan and Greek colonial religious practice to begin with.101 Overcoming

these obstacles will require more formal definitions and some degree of theory-building if

we want to study religious change in the west Mediterranean. Contemporary scholarship

tends to shy away from definitions, averring that definitions, being reductionist and

essentializing by their very nature, can never capture the complexity and contingency of

real human societies. However, as Walter Burkert once insightfully observed, “Even if the

[religious] system could be described specifically for each place and time or even for

each individual, it would still remain unstable and full of gaps, in the same way that the

experience of the individual, in spite of striving for wholeness, remains disparate and

heterogeneous.”102 Without definitions, therefore, it is very difficult to move beyond the

synthesis of archaeological data and toward interpretation.

Colin Renfrew’s now-classic model for studying religious cult and ritual practice

archaeologically originally appeared in 1985 in The Archaeology of Cult, a sanctuary at

Phylakopi. Renfrew argued that religion, defined as “culturally patterned interaction with

culturally postulated superhuman beings,” could be interpreted through a “framework of

inference” that included “general if not necessarily universal” correlates for ritual

49

100 Dougherty 1993: 89.101 Edlund 1987.102 Burkert 1985: 218.

practice, all of which should provide “1) evidence for expressive actions (of prayer,

sacrifice, offering, etc) and 2) some indications that a transcendent being is involved.”103

He went on to say that this evidence could be categorized under four broader headings:

attention-focusing, liminality, divine presence, and active participation and offering.104

Emma Blake notes that underpinning the study of such “archaeological correlates” is the

assumption that the material remains of religious ritual will differ in some way from the

material of non-cult activity.105 This assumption has problems in and of itself, but it is

particularly problematic when trying to distinguish “religious” activity from other modes

of behavior that might be “ritualized” but not necessarily “religious.” Renfrew recognized

that the risks for misreading or conflating the evidence were quite real, particularly for

circumstances where iconography was missing. Other scholars have noted that there can

often be a lack of distinction between sacred structures, public buildings, and chiefly

homes.106 Alexander Mazarakis-Ainian has argued that, at least in the case of Iron Age

Greece, ambiguities like these can say something about the architectural and social

development of religious structures. But, his point accentuates the rather circular problem

of identifying potential sanctuaries where the difference between sacred and secular

architectural forms was less than conspicuous. To account for issues like these and others,

Renfrew suggested perpetually weighing the material in question against other categories

and contexts of evidence, yet he was fairly vague as to how to actually implement the

method.

Other critiques of Renfrew’s typology and methods have been considerable as

well. Bogdan Rutkowski faulted Renfrew’s processual method and cautioned that the use

of existing data to formulate predictions about the archaeological record verged on

unsound methodology and interpretation.107 Other scholars were more concerned with the

applicability of the typology. Korinna Pilafidis-Williams accepted Renfrew’s

methodology, but suggested that certain correlates described versions of the same

50

103 Renfrew 1985: 18, 20; following the definition set out by Spiro (1966: 96).104 1994: 50-51.105 Blake 2005: 102.106 Mazarakis-Ainian 1997.107 Rutkowski 1986: ch 1; see also Vermeule 1988.

behavior in different sanctuaries.108 Catherine Morgan noted that Renfrew developed his

typology mostly for the site report of Phylakopi and stressed that “aspects of

belief….may be reflected differently according to local circumstances.”109 All of these

concerns are significant. A certain degree of fluidity marked both Renfrew’s

archaeological correlates and their cohesive application; the correlates were purposefully

loosely defined and there were no set rules for how many criteria are “required” to make

a context “sacred.” Renfrew insisted that his typology was not a “checklist” and that the

evidence for the correlates needed to be read as part of a wider context.110 In practice,

however, the typology certainly relied on deductive reasoning-- the more correlates one

could “check off,” the more likely that the context was “sacred.”

Part of the reason why scholars found such fault with this typological approach

was that Renfrew never seemed to provide an adequate explanation for why he chose the

archaeological correlates that he did. They seemed to work for the questions that Renfrew

wanted to ask, but the development of correlates from the evidence that was available

that was then used to identify that evidence as indicative of religious behavior was

inherently circular. Throughout this project, I follow a typological method similar to

Renfrew’s, but my starting point differs from him in that I build archaeological correlates

specifically from religious comparanda provided by anthropologists and evolutionary

psychological studies of religion. Where Renfrew was vague about why he developed the

correlates the way he did, I try to be explicit about why I think certain elements of

material culture should be included in an archaeological framework of religion. Part of

the appeal of using evolutionary psychological theories for studying religion is that,

because they work off the assumption that the capacity for cognition is, for the most part,

uniform among humans, their baseline for comparative analysis is extremely basic.

Evoluntionary psychologists believe that human psychological faculties taxonomically

distinguish them from other species and, in some cases, can be shown to belie a human

propensity towards rational thought and morality. Due to this shared cognitive

51

108 Pilafidis-Williams 1998: 303.109 Morgan 1999: 299. 110 Re-asserted in Renfrew 1994.

background, some scholars wonder whether or to what extent different cultural groups

operate with radically different ontologies. Geoffrey Lloyd, for example, alleges that, “To

the extent that they do [operate with different ontologies], the issues we must confront

include (1) how they can be said to be mutually intelligible and (2) how any change is

possible. Cultures have sometimes been imagined to be the prisoners of their ideologies,

or of their natural languages: how far are they the prisoners of deep-seated ontological

assumptions?”111

Evolutionary psychological approaches argue that humans acquired certain

“mental predispositions” for religion, probably via natural selection. They posit that the

more advanced cognitive capacities of humans allow the species to identify relevant

information in the environment and treat that information in a special way.112 Humans in

general use a process of categorization in which they induct unseen or unspecified

attributes from particular stimuli,113 resulting in what some anthropologists have labeled

inference systems; these systems in turn classify further information and create particular

expectations for “ontological entities.” In the inference system framework that

anthropologist Pascal Boyer poses, religious concepts are those ontological entities that

possess something “counterintuitive” to what we would normally expect from them.114 A

religious concept or symbol is more likely to be transmitted to others if it preserves its

other ontological expectations and creates a richer and more interrelated set of implied

inferences. The religious concepts that are taken most seriously are the ones that activate

multiple vital inference systems, such as those related to intense emotions, social

interaction and moral feelings.

Cultural anthropologists have generally insisted that supernatural concepts or

religious elements tend to be equally (im-)plausible and that they are always culturally

specific and/or dependent on the specific power structures which produce them.

52

111 Lloyd 2007: 7.112 Insoll 2004.113 Kruschke 2005: 183-185; Mithen 1996. 114 Boyer 2001: 57-65; Counterintuitive, he argues, “is a technical term here. It does not mean strange, inexplicable, funny, exceptional or extraordinary. What is counterintuitive here is not even necessarily surprising...used here, [it is] namely “including information contradicting some information provided by ontological categories” (ibid.: 65).

However, what evolutionary psychologists and ethnographers discovered was a striking

amount of similarity in a) types of religious concepts over the world and b) what people

from different parts of the world found plausible as religious concepts.115 The most

common features of religion, they suggested, involved supernatural beings (i.e. beings

that possess a counterintuitive quality to what we might expect and that are thought to

possess strategic knowledge), shared a concern with death and pollution, involved

proscriptive rituals, engaged explicit or implicit levels of exclusivity, and inspired

cultural believability.

Evolutionary psychologists have just as many areas of disagreement among

themselves as any other group of scholars, but one thing they do tend to agree on is this

notion of certain “mental predispositions” for religion. Oddly enough, the idea of using

the shared cognitive background of different human cultural groups to form a general

theory of religion has not been exclusive to the field of evolutionary psychology; it has,

in fact, a fairly wide, if not always explicit, resonance in past and current studies of

religion. Early philosophers like Aristotle, for example, situated the distinctiveness of

humans not in physical abilities or corporal morphology, but in the rationality of the

human soul.116 Durkheim recognized a somewhat great theological problem in his study,

that is, that if “sacredness” and divinities are only symbolic constructions and expressions

of society itself, then why do people imagine them to begin with? Durkheim’s response

was that humans think up religion via a mental mechanism (not defined further) for the

purpose of giving humans a meaning and moral significance in the world. Even some

cultural-symbolic approaches have ultimately refered back to human cognition and

imagination as the main organizing principle for religious expression. Geertz himself, for

example, claimed that the true importance of religion “lies in its capacity to serve...as a

source of general, yet distinctive, conceptions of the world, the self, and the relations

between them, on the one hand—its model of aspect—and of rooted, no less distinctive

“mental” dispositions—its model for aspect—on the other.”117 Very recent studies have

53

115 Boyer 2001: 79-86. Keil and Kelley 1985: 403-16.116 A theory continuously debated from Aristotle to Aquinas to the more recent reactions against “robotic mentality” (e.g. Stanovich 2004). 117 Geertz 1973: 123.

proposed using generalized processes of the human brain if a lack of sources becomes

especially problematic.118

Using the insights of these scholars, evolutionary psychologists studying religion,

and Renfrew’s own original thesis, I propose a set of 13 archaeological correlates in

Table 1-3 that will be applied to the case studies in chapters 3-6.

Archaeological correlates of “religion” used in the comparison of Sicilian, Sardinian, Greek, and Phoenician religious developments

1) Located in a place in a spot with (super-)natural associations.

2) Located in an area set apart from other types of settlement space.

3) Involving conspicuous public display, often of materials of high intrinsic or symbolic value and using specialized forms of both architecture and votives.

4) Worship will involve prayer or special means of communicating with a divinity, often reflected in the iconography.

5) Devices or aspects of ritual may be used to induce/heighten religious experience.

6) Attention-focusing devices, such as altars, hearths, benches, etc are likely present.

7) Iconic or aniconic representations of the supernatural being/power may be used.

8) Specialized facilities (pools, basins, hearths, benches) or equipment may be used.

9) Sacrifice is practiced.

10) Votives may be dedicated or offered, often with accompanying rituals.

11) Food and drink may be offered, consumed, or poured away.

12) Area may be rich in symbolism, particularly related to deities.

13) A concern with cleanliness and pollution is reflected in the facilities.

Table 1-3. The “framework of religion” used in the case-studies, as adapted from C.

Renfrew (1985).

There are four major reasons for using a framework or typological approach to the

study of ancient religious change in the west Mediterranean. First, the “framework”

54

118 Fogelin 2007: 63.

approach remains the most effective mechanism for evaluating the archaeological

evidence of prehistoric sites. Second, the use of deductive reasoning instead of a

standardized archetype means that “sacred ritual” may occur in whatever context applies

to the correlates. Sacred ritual may thus occur in varied contexts, perhaps indicating that

similar behaviors happen in different contexts at different times.

Third, even with its setbacks and its author’s warning, the “checklist” approach

facilitates at least a beginning for the comparison of developments in religious and ritual

practice among different groups. Anthony Blasi, echoing the seminal work of Weber on

ideal-types, has written that, as an operation,

comparison involves two kinds of concept-- inclusive and exclusive. The inclusive concept enables two or more cases to be accepted as examples of what the concept includes. The inclusive concept prevents our comparing “apples and oranges.” ...The exclusive concept distinguishes between the two or more cases that are being compared. They cannot be identical; otherwise no comparison is in order. [At the same time] These two concepts are not mutually exclusive because a comparison entails both a sameness and a difference.119

In the archaeological framework of religion, material correlates serve as “inclusive”

concepts-- that is, categories of a more generalizable scope towards which direct

observations (or as religious theorists say, realissima) refer. The point of comparison,

Blasi goes on, is not to catalogue the plurality of direct observations, but to identify those

exclusive concepts that refer to larger cultural or social constructs: comparisons, he

claims, “use direct observables, but are about constructs.”120

This point is worth emphasizing because some of the material correlates that I

examine have very similar expressions across the case studies. The definition of sacred

space and its separation from other parts of a settlement, particularly through the use of

permanent temenos-walls, was a widespread and cross-cultural development of the Iron

and Archaic ages. Similarly, the tendency for at least one sanctuary to be located at the

highest part of the settlement is perceptible for Greek, Phoenician, and indigenous

Sicilian communities alike, particularly after the mid-sixth century, but was never as

important for indigenous Sards. In cases like these, classifying the appearance of the

“direct observables” among indigenous communities as responses to particular “colonial”

55

119 Blasi 2006: 6.120 Ibid.: 7.

stimuli or trying to delineate which “colonial” stimulus was more responsible for the

result is not only methodologically problematic, but not necessarily all that informative

either. However, where the variation in the material responses can be linked to more

structural differences in the underlying cultural and social behavior that created them is

where comparative analysis of religious developments can tell us about broader patterns

of cultural and socio-political development.

Fourth and finally, only rarely have scholars tried to define religious change in

rigorous terms and many do not connect the models of religious (and cultural) change to

the evidence on the ground. By using a framework of archaeological correlates, we can

facilitate the study of religious change and development in more quantifiable and less

impressionistic terms. The west Mediterranean changed significantly in terms of religious

development after colonization began. For the rest of this dissertation, my job will be to

try and figure out why.

56

Chapter 2

Indigenous religion and religious change in the Hellenization historiography

Introduction

In 1968, the French archaeologist Michel Py challenged his peers and other

Classicists to clarify the term “Hellenization.” Py claimed that, “Dire qu’un tesson

témoigne de l’hellénisation du lieu de sa découverte n’est pas plus faux que de dire que

l’usage de l’alphabet grec témoigne du meme phénomène; mais, du moins, ce n’est pas

plus instructif, car on assimile sous un meme qualificatif des concepts qui se placent à des

niveaux très différents. Il est urgent de faire usage de structures plus nettes."121 Attacking

these ambiguities, he proposed that Hellenization occurred at three different levels:

material culture, techniques of production and representation, and the more nebulous

category of “principes,” which included “usage,” language, and religious beliefs. By

making the ambiguities of Hellenization explicit, Py signaled the beginning of a new era

in approaches to the study of the western Mediterranean.

As I alluded to in the preceding chapter, what began with Py as a challenge to

rethink simplistic conceptual models of colonialism and an invitation to open a dialogue

between “traditional” Hellenization and postcolonial theory has now nearly stalemated.

The theoretical standoff that I see at work in the current scholarship on colonization-- in

which traditional Hellenization approaches are juxtaposed with postcolonial ones-- has

especially affected the ways in which the history of scholarship has been represented.

Recent work, especially in the Anglo-American academic world, has characterized the

Hellenization historiography in black and white terms, seeing current research as a

reaction against outdated models, which putatively construed Hellenization to mean the

unidirectional transfer of a superior Greek culture to subordinate and passive native

populations.122 These (mostly postcolonial) reactions have argued their point by tracing

the ideological development of the Hellenization narrative, most often stressing the

57

121 Py 1968: 59.122 Van Dommelen 1998; Ibid. 1999; De Angelis 2003a; Ibid. 2003b; Gosden 2004; Dietler 1997; Ibid. 2005.

relationship between Hellenization and the epistemic and cultural context of

Hellenism.123 In doing so, they have largely targeted nineteenth- and early twentieth-

century scholarship, which associated colonization very broadly with concepts of

civilization and posited ancient colonization as the evolutionary precedent of the more

modern colonial mission civilisatrice.124

While recent contributions have shed a much-needed light on the non-Hellenic

world of the west Mediterranean, the drive to correct the colonialist bias of the past has,

in some ways, led to an oversimplification of the Hellenization historiography. As Sara

Owen has pointed out, “it has become something of a truism to state that past studies of

Greek ‘colonization’ have been influenced by, or even based upon, the colonial

experience of Britain and other Western European nations.”125 A more nuanced view of

the historiography, I believe, offers a staging point for understanding the complexity of

the ancient evidence. One feature that complicates the by-now canonical representation of

colonization scholarship is the variability in early treatments of ancient religion and

religious change. Failing to notice such variation, I argue, not only unfairly standardizes

the historiography, but also obscures the developments in the actual archaeological

record.

In this chapter I show that although religion has been an under-explored topic in

colonization studies, it is the key element for moving research forward. In contrast to

recent characterizations of the early scholarship, I see a long tradition of scholarly interest

in indigenous culture in the western Mediterranean, particularly in indigenous religious

sites and religious practice. I show how much of the early scholarship argued that

indigenous religion remained a bastion of native tradition, sometimes up into the Roman

empire. Other scholars claimed further that religion was the one area where indigenous

58

123 Here, I follow Morris’ definition of Hellenism as “an idealization of ancient Greece as the birthplace of a European spirit” (1994: 11). Scholars who have argued this point include: Dietler 1997; Ibid. 2005; Van Dommelen 1998; De Angelis 1998; Owen 2005; Shepherd 2005; Hodos 2006.124 Van Dommelen provides a full bibliography for this concept at work in North Africa. Several articles in Cusick (ed.) 1998 also examine the “civilization” implications of “colonization” within scholarship on the early Americas.125 Owen 2005: 5.

culture made an impact on the Greeks.126 This interpretation upsets the “stereotypical

Hellenization narrative,” which contemporary postcolonial scholarship has presented as

an organic concept principled on the idea of a rapid indigenous assimilation to all aspects

of Greek culture.127 Yet, it does not find the Hellenization narrative innocent either. The

interpretation of indigenous religion as conservative, continuous, and unchanging is itself

problematic and, as I argue at the end of this chapter, is enmeshed in complex modern

ideological dynamics, particularly those that are related to the concept of “primitive

religion” and the origins of religious worship.128

“Traditional” Hellenization narratives cannot be excused from accusations of

Eurocentrism, philhellenism, or racism; that point is clear. My point is that for 40 years

now, we have focused primarily on showing how nineteenth- and twentieth-century

narratives of colonization were wrong. As a result, we have created a very neatly

packaged paradigm of Hellenization, but one that a) is flawed; b) overlooks more

compelling historiographic issues; and c) prevents us from accurately assessing a crucial

category of evidence for cultural change in the Archaic and Classical western

Mediterranean. Historiography can seem redundant if it only summarizes the issues. In

this chapter, I try to avoid doing just that by asking why and how our questions have

developed. Ian Morris has explained that,

By taking our forebears seriously, setting them in context and thinking of them as real people, rather than putting them on pedestals or reviling their stupidity, we make their questions and methods make sense. We see what they tried to do; we see why we maybe should not try to do the same things any more; and, hopefully, we develop some humility about our own claims. Looking at things on a timescale several generations long makes it easier to grasp how serious and fair-minded appraisal of the evidence then available constrained ideas, but also how external forces—power, money, politics—shaped what parts of that evidence people took seriously, and what they thought it meant. But above all, a historiographical approach shows in ways that nothing else can that it is up to us, here and now, to set the agendas for archaeology.129

Important things happened for both Greek and indigenous religion in the west

Mediterranean during the Archaic period. But, if our main desire is to create a cohesive

59

126 For example, Mitford 1839; Grote 1888/1846: 21-27; Holm 1870: 74-78; Freeman 1891-94: 103-104, 134, 144, 162, 164, 170; Pais 1894, vol 1: 189-91, 200.127 Owen 2005: 6.128 Eliade (1959) provides a brief chronological review of some of these developments.129 Morris 2000: 30.

model of an intellectual history affected by imperialism, then we will continue to

overlook the changes that did occur and thus suppress any real understanding of how

developments in religious practice helped shape the Archaic world of the western

Mediterranean.

The west Mediterranean in early scholarship

Although parts of the historiography of the west Mediterranean have been closely

linked to the history of Aegean Greece, the publication of individual regional histories,

particularly of Sicily and Magna Grecia, has meant that since the sixteenth century, the

West developed another, more independent tradition of scholarship. In this tradition,

regional histories have developed somewhat separately from the history of Greece as well

as from each other. Moreover, variant interpretive models of each independent regional

history have risen and fallen in popularity over time. In this section, I examine these

patterns in the historiography by focusing on histories of Sicily. As Giovanna Ceserani

has observed, contrary to Arnaldo Momigliano’s appraisal, histories of Sicily are dynamic

and historically contingent; they reflect the cultural history of the periods in which they

were produced.130 In this section, I build on this observation by reviewing some of the

most influential histories of Sicily. I want to add to Ceserani’s argument about the cultural

history of the periods and authors by looking specifically at the attitudes towards Greek

colonization, indigenous Sicilian culture, and religion. By doing this, I show that not only

was there a strong interest in “indigenous culture” that complicates most current

scholarship’s evaluation of the early literature, but that the particular interest in religion

amongst these histories simultaneously embodies an exception to the “Hellenization”

model while also reflecting contemporary biases and a European preoccupation with

“primitive religions.”

Methodically researched and written “histories” of Sicily are generally said to

have begun with the work of Tomasso Fazello in the sixteenth century. Although

influenced by earlier treatises on Italian culture and history, Fazello, a Dominican monk

60

130 Ceserani 2000: 175-76 contra Momigliano 1978: 116-17, 121; 1979.

from Sciacca (on the southern coast of Sicily, near Agrigento), was the earliest scholar to

compile a comprehensive collection of evidence related to ancient and medieval Sicily,

primarily obtained through his four periegetic trips across Sicily and rigorous study of the

ancient sources. In De Rebus Siculis decades duo, Fazello argued that Sicily’s history

can be written as a series of invasions, settlement, and the clash and collaboration

between the different peoples who lived there.131 Fazello saw this pattern beginning with

the earliest “invaders,” the Sikels, and charted its continuity up through the Normans.

Because Fazello understood Sicily as an island of incursions, he also never privileged one

group of invaders above another as the determinant culture or population of Sicily.132

This aspect of Fazello’s interpretation seems particularly relevant to assessments

of the historiographical tradition of Hellenization and the role of Hellenism in

hellenization theories. Momigliano argued that neither Fazello nor his successors, up

until the end of the eighteenth century, viewed Sicily as a “Greek Sicily triumphant.”133

Momigliano explained further that, “even while boasting of Stesichorus, Empedocles,

Gorgias, Dicearchus, Theocritus, Archimedes, and Diodorus as their compatriots, they

held them at a distance.” 134 Although other scholars have challenged Momigliano’s

presentation of a somewhat static historiography of Sicily, they have generally concurred

that the conception of Sicilian history as predominantly “Hellenic” only really developed

after “Hellenism” became a widespread European phenomenon in the eighteenth

century.135 Since these early histories do not attribute precedence to the Greek period over

other periods, they also do not assume the same notions of Greek cultural superiority and/

or colonial relations that supposedly typify Hellenization theory.

This is not to say, however, that Fazello’s work does not include some very primal

variant of Hellenization. De Rebus Siculis indeed emphasized invasions as the defining

61

131 Fazello 1558.132 Momigliano 1978: 115-17. Ceserani makes the important point that Fazello may not have named any singular group as the “defining population” simply because this was a non-issue in the sixteenth century. As support, she cites Benedict Anderson’s (1991) argument that “identity” as identity of a “people” only developed as a product of late eighteenth century nationalism.133 Momigliano 1978: 117.134 Ibid.135 E.g. Ceserani 2000.

feature of Sicilian history; but it also made the point that these incoming groups made

both beneficial and harmful “contributions” to the Sicilian population. The interaction

between the groups present and the groups arriving was central to Fazello’s research,

even if not entirely explicit. For us, Fazello should be the first blip on the

historiographical radar for Hellenization, but with the acknowledgement that there was

not yet any concrete formulation of the notion that Sicily nor southern Italy more

generally was somehow inherently tied to Greek culture.

The “origins” and “earliest inhabitants” of Sicily were the primary subjects for

studies made after Fazello as well, and can be seen as part of a broader historiographical

trend that saw the undertaking of specific local histories by local scholars as well as some

early synthetic treatments of the “early peoples” of Italy. Carmine Ampolo notes that by

the first quarter of the seventeenth century, local, antiquarian-heavy publications had

been produced for the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, Calabria, and Campania.136 Biagio

Pace identified this trend in the historiography early on, describing it as a “surge” of

regionalism.137 Such regionalism seems more explicit in certain cases, such as in the two

volumes L’Antica Siracusa Illustrata of Conte Giacomo Bonanni e Colonna published in

1624.138 The first volume included ten chapters of archaeological and topographical

description, much of which is directed against Vincenzo Mirabella, a Neapolitan whose

earlier treatment of Syracuse (Dichiarazione delle piante delle antiche Siracuse) had

come out in 1612. In this situation, regional studies by Sicilian scholars became contexts

for political invective, particularly against Naples.139 Other monographs were less critical

of earlier scholarship, but shared the same affinity for regional history. Messina’s ancient

archaeological history was recorded alongside the genealogy of its contemporary

62

136 Ampolo 1996: 1036-37.137 Pace 1935, vol. 1: 18.138 Some scholars (including Pace) have claimed that these volumes were probably written by Pietro Carrera, a priest who lived near Catania and who published a number of literary, archaeological and historical works. Carrera served as secretary to Giacomo Bonanni, the Duke of Montalbano in the early 1600s. When the duke died, Carrera claimed sole authorship, but many, including the duke’s children, rejected the claim.139 Momigliano suggested a somewhat similar argument for the second half of the eighteenth century with Sicilians claiming their own history as primarily anything not associated with the Bourbons and thus, Naples.

residents.140 Federico’s slightly later (1618) volume examined Selinus and Mazara

similarly. More famously, the Palermitan Mariano Valguarnera used local legends and

privately-held artifact collections to produce a close study of “ancient” Panormus. There

are numerous others, but the point has already been made: in the seventeenth century, for

a variety of reasons, local and regional history made its mark on how scholarship about

Sicily was carried out.

These regional studies developed alongside two other shifts in scholarly

consciousness in the seventeenth century. The first evolved somewhat naturally from the

ongoing close studies of regional history, and involved the nascent awareness of Italy’s

pre-Roman societies. De primis Italiae colonis-- the first dissertation dedicated to the

early populations of Italy-- was published in 1606 by the French antiquarian and historian

Pierre-Leon Casella and by 1624, Philip Clüver had conducted close studies of not only

Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica (published as three volumes in 1619), but also all of the

regions of southern Italy (published as volume IV after his death in 1623), all with the

explicit aim of attaining personal honor and glory for Holland, his patron country at the

time. Clüver’s methodology and style of writing clarifies the wishes that he and other

writers of the time had for studying the ancient material. The ancient text related to an

individual site was first printed, and Clüver’s comments on whether or not the ancient

description was accurate based on his own personal survey followed. Thus, the work

served as a guide to the topography mentioned in the ancient texts, not necessarily as an

independent study of Sicilian history.141

The ways in which Clüver and others approached the evidence have two other

significant implications. First, Clüver surveyed sites mentioned in ancient texts. As a

result, most of his commentary focused on Greek sites, and the visible remains of those

sites in particular. In most cases, the visible remains were those of monumental Greek

temples. The textual basis of this method did not lead Clüver to look exclusively at Greek

sites, however, even though the visible remains on the sites he chose would have

63

140 Bonfiglio 1606.141 This style of scholarship continued into the eighteenth century, in, for example, the work of Jacques D’Orville who differed from Clüver primarily in the number of “corrections” he made to the identifications of previous scholars, notably Fazello.

appeared to be Greco-Roman or close imitations. These included indigenous sites like

Segesta and Entella, as well as the Phoenician colonies of Motya and Panormus. Clüver

may have been originally drawn to these sites because of their descriptions in the

literature as explicitly Phoenician or Elymian sites, indicating at least a superficial

interest in non-Greek groups. More telling, however, is the fact that a significant amount

of his personal commentary on these sites dealt with the visible, monumental and thus,

often religious but also seemingly Greco-Roman, architecture and its relation to a

topographic reference in a particular text.142 Topography and the use of toponyms as

historical evidence thus somewhat unintentionally narrowed the general historical scope

onto sites mentioned in texts, but also sites with monumental religious architecture.

One of the main products of this type of methodology was a new consciousness of

Italy’s and Sicily’s non-Roman and, more specifically, Greek, roots. These roots were

eventually captured by the concept of “Magna Grecia,” whose first appearance was in

the antiquarian, and most especially numismatic, work by another non-Italian, the

Dutchman H. Goltzius, Sicilia et Magna Graecia. Historiae urbium et populorum

Graeciae, ex antiquis numismatibus liber I, published in 1676. Non-Italian scholars

played a strong role in bringing the Greek background of southern Italy (as well as that of

early, pre-Roman Italian societies) to prominence; Clüver was, after all, Danish, Casella

was French, and Goltzius Dutch. Clüver’s somewhat pointed remarks on the state of

scholarship at the time reveal the aspirations such scholars had for studying and exposing

the area to a wider European audience: “I hoped that after so many generations, which so

far have neglected and ignored this scholarship, I alone, diligent and careful, could work

to restore in this science that which would do much good for scholars of literature and the

fine arts, in order to confer great glory to those places.”143 The shift away from strictly

64

142 This is not to say that seventeenth-century scholars should be faulted for their methodology; alternative means of analysis were scarce prior to the development of excavation techniques in the 1870s. The issue is more that, given the intrinsic focus of the methodology on religious architecture, scholarly attention was already most attuned to the sacred areas of Greek, Phoenician, and indigenous sites. Samuel Bochart’s (1646) study explicates these dimensions at work more concretely. Bochart handled toponyms in ways similar to Clüver, but for the explicit purpose of investigating the religious contexts of the island.143 Cluver 1619: preface; ii “...sperabam, si unus ego posttot sacula, quibus hactenus id studium neglectum ignoratumque fuit, diligentius curatiusque in eâ scientiâ instaurandâ laboararem, quae multum esset profutura omnibus literarum artiumque bonarum studiosis, tum ipsis locis gloriam additura ingentem. Eóque maiori animo ac conatu rem tam difficilem, tamque improbabm, adgressus sum.”

regional histories by local scholars to one that involved non-locals engaged in the study

of early Italian societies and their Greek counterparts thus brought forward areas--i.e.,

Sicily and southern Italy-- that had been up until that point marginalized. Consequently,

scholarship concerning them became more and more subject to contemporary European

academic standards and trends.

Similar forces were behind the rise of antiquarianism in the seventeenth century

and the subsequent effect that had on shaping historical scholarship on Sicily. Throughout

the first half of the century, several scholars, Sicilians as well as outsiders, published

corpora of inscriptions, coins, and “sites of interest” all found within Sicily and often

constituting personal collections.144 These publications have been linked by Momigliano

and others to broader continental interests in antiquarianism in addition to their regional

significance. In ways quite similar to the “topographic” research of Sicily, antiquarian

scholarship was an active playing field for local history and broader European research.

Momigliano, Alain Schnapp and others have drawn attention to the emphasis that

antiquarians of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries put on non-literary

evidence and its role in driving the development of new histories grounded in material

culture.145 In 1679, for example, Jacques Spon claimed that ancient authors were less able

to express the passion of man than either marble or bronze.146 Francesco Bianchini’s

subsequent 1697 publication of La Istoria Universale provata con monumenti e figurata

con simboli degli antichi was even more overt in its promotion of the use of material

culture as historical evidence: it called archaeological evidence “symbol and proof of

what happened” (“le figure dei fatti, ricavate da monumenti d’antichità oggidì conservate,

mi sono sembrate simboli insieme e pruove dell’istoria.”) and the study of ancient

monuments as “accomodato al genio della età nostra.”147 Beyond the issue of what was

considered appropriate or even the “better” type of historical evidence, however, is

another pattern within seventeenth-century historical studies in which the “sacred” aspect

65

144 Paruta 1612; Walter 1624; Pirri 1630.145 Momigliano 1966; Schnapp 1996.146 Spon 1679: preface.147 Bianchini 1679; quoted in Croce 1924 (vol. 2): 101-109 and Momigliano 1955: 85.

of history was privileged.148 This emphasis on specifically “religious” evidence may have

had greater influence on later research interests (and interpretations) than we have

generally thought.

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholarship: Hellenism, archaeology, and

religion

Although many of the fundamentals of historical writing that had developed

during the seventeenth century were maintained into the following years, the eighteenth

century was also a period of dramatic upheaval. The transitions in European dynasties

and, subsequently, new nation-states changed the course of how scholars engaged with

the history and archaeology of the Mediterranean generally and Sicily and Magna Grecia

in particular. In Sicily itself, leadership changed hands several times in just the first half

of the century. Having been under the control of Spain up to 1713, the reins were rapidly

exchanged from Savoy (1713-1718) back to Spain (1718-1720), and then again to Austria

(1720). By 1735, the Bourbons, centered at Naples, had incorporated the island into the

independent Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Although insular, Sicily was also not excluded

from the continental discussions of the Enlightenment. Giuseppe Giarrizzo has shown,

for example, that Sicilians were deeply engaged in Enlightenment culture, particularly in

regard to ideas about political and economic reform.149 The combination of near constant

political turmoil and debates over economic and social structure resulted in a new interest

in the past and what that meant for Sicilians.150

This new interest in the past was revealed in a variety of ways, and was refracted

through multiple levels of interaction between the material past, Sicilian scholars, and the

broader European community. The significance of the eighteenth century for classical

studies and archaeology—particularly the rise of Hellenism in Europe-- has been

illuminated by much of the scholarship of the past twenty years, making it unnecessary to

go into too many details here. But, I do want to reiterate three points made by other

66

148 E.g. Valguarnera 1614; Pirri 1630; Bochart 1646.149 Giarrizzo 1992.150 Ceserani 2000: 181.

scholars in order to show how intellectual trends in the eighteenth century contributed to

a growing interest in Greek colonization and, in particular, both Greek and indigenous

religion. I then want to show how this attraction to religious contexts, in some ways,

contrasted strongly with developing notions of cultural change, particularly that of

“Hellenization.” I address each of these points in turn below.

First and foremost, people in the eighteenth century were beginning to think about

history differently. More than half a century ago, Momigliano argued that the eighteenth

century was a period in which traditional historical narrative--that is, linear histories

mostly describing the succession of political and military events-- and antiquarianism--or

the systematic study and collection of “things”-- converged.151 Although Momigliano

wrote that there had never been “an absolute divorce” between the two traditions, they

had largely remained within their own ambits up until the eighteenth century:

Historiography from Thucydides onward was above all political in subject-matter, it set out to explain and instruct, it followed a chronological order, and was concerned with great events, with important nations or cities. Erudite research on religion, art, customs, proper names, events of obscure cities or nations and so on was excluded; usually...it [i.e., erudition] was hostile to chronological order.152

Archaeology and the study of material culture--including, but not limited to,

coins, inscriptions, monuments, and art-- were an integral part of the new approach to

historical inquiry, particularly in Italy. The trend of using material culture as historical

evidence had begun in the seventeenth century, as described above, but it intensified

during the eighteenth as Enlightenment sympathies encouraged the study of more

“cultural” topics. Material culture became one of the means for engaging with the

discussions of the Enlightenment and testing their relevance for the ancient past,

especially on subjects like the role of art, institutionalized religion, and social habits. As

many scholars have shown, Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

exemplifies this broader eighteenth-century trend. Gibbon’s letters and memoirs

document his inspiration for the history as stemming from an acutely visual and material

67

151 Originally formulated in Momigliano 1955: 67-106, and more recently in Momigliano 1990: 54-79; see also Pocock 1999, vol. II: 1-25 and Ceserani 2005: 414-16.152 Momigliano 1966: 216.

experience. In a letter to his father, dated just days after his arrival in Rome in 1764,

Gibbon describes how

Whatever ideas books may have given us of the greatness of that people, Their accounts of the most flourishing state of Rome fall infinitely short of the picture of its ruins. I am convinced there never never [sic] existed such a people and I hope for the happiness of mankind that there never will again. I was this morning upon the top of Trajan’s pillar. I shall not attempt a description of it. Only figure to yourself a Column 140 feet high of the purest white marble composed only of about 30 blocks and wrought into bas reliefs with as much taste and delicacy as any chimney piece in Up-Park.153

Another factor that seems to have played into the shift towards more cultural

history was, as Mark Phillips has suggested, a new interest in issues of “private” life,

individual subjectivity, and comparative history. This can be seen, for example, in a

passage from the philosophical historian John Logan’s Elements of the Philosophy of

History, a 1781 treatise that saw all human achievements as part of a great societal

enterprise: “It is this that renders History, in its proper form, interesting to all mankind, as

its object is not merely to delineate the projects of Princes, or the intrigues of Statesmen;

but to give a picture of society and represent the character and spirit of nations” (italics

added).154 More sentimentalist influences are also evident in some of the era’s re-

evaluations of ancient authors, most particularly of biographers such as Tacitus and

Sallust.155 In some ways, archaeology provided a means for looking at these issues of

“private” sentiment and for obtaining a more faithful depiction of what the scholar Joseph

Priestley termed at the time “the manners and turn of thinking” of ancient societies and,

correlatively, the differences between them.156

Phillips comments that, altogether the remarkable change in the way that

eighteenth-century scholars were writing had not to do with new doctrines or new

material, but rather with “the reconfiguration of existing elements in relation to the

whole, the new weight they [were] expected to bear, and the seriousness with which they

[were] now regarded compared to earlier casualness or subordination” (italics

original).157 Yet, for understanding the historiography of Greek colonization,

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153 Orig. published in Norton (ed.)1956: 184; cited in Pocock 1999: 282.154 Logan 1781: preface; cited in Phillips 1996: 305-307.155 Phillips 1996: 310-314.156 Priestley 1788: 359-60.157 Phillips 1996: 305.

Hellenization, and indigenous societies, it would be a mistake to downplay the

significance of the archaeological discoveries that were made during the period. In 1723,

for example, Thomas Dempster and Filippo Buonarroti published a collection of

antiquarian material from Etruria to spectacular success. In the wake of the overflow in

interest in the Etruscans, museums opened across Tuscany and Umbria, and

archaeological departments were initiated at several universities, including those in Rome

and Naples. Several years later, Herculaneum and Pompeii were discovered, fueling the

new fire for archaeological investigation. One of the greatest consequnces of these

developments was an even stronger assertion of the importance of pre-Roman societies in

Italy, a situation that resonated with ongoing regional suspicions of Rome and the

Church, particularly in Italy’s southern half.158 As Momigliano once pointed out, “Local

patriotism was gratified by the high antiquity of pre-Roman civilizations. The new trend

of interest in non-literary evidence suggested the possibility and provided the technique

of exploration. The antiquarian method, combined as it was with the patriotic revival,

produced scholars of an excellence unknown in Italy for over a hundred years.”159

The increasing interest in cultural history thus intersected (at least in Italy) with

the rising tide of regionalism and its engagement with pre-Roman societies. In addition,

both were also emerging in the new European climate of Hellenism. By the late

eighteenth century, ancient Greece and the Greeks had come to be seen as the ideal

embodiment of human accomplishment. The heavy authority of individuals like Johann

Winckelmann, Friedrich August Wolf, Alexander von Humboldt, the collective London

Society of Dilettanti, and Sir William Hamilton was certainly a major factor in how the

Greeks attained this position in the ideological mindset of modern Europeans.160 Greek

visual culture and monuments-- particularly Greek temples-- became magnets for

Hellenist admiration, most notably after Le Roy’s publication of his Ruines des plus

beaux monuments de la Grèce in 1758 and the later emission of the drawings made by

69

158 See Mascioli 1942: 366-84 for more on anti-Rome feelings among Italian regions at the time.159 Momigliano 1955: 92.160 Cf. Eisner 1991; Morris 1994; Marchand 1996.

James Stuart and Nicholas Revett.161 Equally significant for the rise of Hellenism and its

relationship to the concept of Hellenization, however, were the strong roots Hellenism

had in Italy, via institutions like the Italian Grand Tour, the systemization of the study of

Italian and Greek visual cultures, and, significantly, the increasingly pressing question of

the relationship between the Greeks and pre-Roman or Italian indigenous societies. For

the first two of these, the interconnection between Italy, Hellenism, and, significantly, the

material element of Greek culture, is tellingly illustrated in Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s

famous 1787 portrait of Goethe in which the poet reclines beside a sculpted metope and

an Ionic capital in Campagna, with ruins in the background. As Kostis Kourelis has

shown, this conflation between real Italy, imaginary Greece, and the power of Hellenism

over European intellectual culture was then manifested in the frontispiece of Goethe’s

Italian Journeys, which reads ‘I, too in Arcadia.”162

The question of the relationship between the Greeks and early Italian societies,

however, was more complicated. Winckelmann had been one of the first to acknowledge

that Etruscan materials seemed to be closely or even purely Greek in style. Greek pots

and monuments had also appeared in southern Italy, particularly after excavations at

Herculaneum and Pompeii began, and in Sicily. It was becoming increasingly clear that

the Greeks had an important role to play in the pre-Roman history of Italy and, moreover,

that the relationship between the Greeks and pre-Roman Italians was a fairly intimate

one. But, the question of how to properly describe, much less explain, it had not yet

entered the literature.

Interestingly, the question started to bud just as a new form of comparative

analysis was solidifying amongst historians. The mid- to late-eighteenth century saw a

more concerted effort at drawing direct comparisons between different cultural groups

and societies. The well-studied “quarrel of ancients and moderns” is relevant, but less so

than the fact that these direct comparisons also involved the internal comparison of

ancient peoples, and, slightly later, the comparison of ancient customs-- most especially

those associated with religion-- to indigenous cultures that European colonizers had by

70

161 Eisner 1991: 64-69, 82-86; Morris 1994: 137; Ceserani 2000.162 Kourelis 2004: 37.

that point encountered. “Primitive” societies were attracting the attention of

ethnographers and ancient historians alike, as evidenced in comments like that of the

English translator of Tacitus’s Germania, Arthur Murphy, who called the work "a faithful

picture of society in its wild, uncultivated state," and the earlier parallels drawn by

Lafitau between Native American and ancient customs and religious practices.163 As

these and other works show, interest in cultural difference and similarity and notions of

social interaction between “primitive” and “civilized” societies developed somewhat

earlier than a specific interest in “colonization” per se.

The wider exposure that Sicily and southern Italy gained in terms of both the

rising number of foreign visitors and relevance to European intellectual and cultural

discussions intensified exponentially over the end of the eighteenth century and into the

nineteenth, sometimes in not exactly peaceful ways. In her study of the Sicilian princes of

Torremuzza and Biscari, Ceserani has shown that their publications and roles as

superintendents of antiquities and hosts to foreign travelers like Philippe d’Orville and

the Baron Riedesel demonstrate a slightly antagonistic preoccupation with both the

material past and European scholars as the eighteenth century drew near its end.164 This

point is further exemplified in the preface to Le Antichità della Sicilia, a set of volumes

on Sicilian cities and their antiquities published between 1834 and 1842 by Domenico Lo

Faso Pietrasanta, the duke of Serradifalco. By the time of his writing, several cities, such

as Catania, Syracuse, and Messina, boasted the extensive remains of structures and

monuments. I quote the Lo Faso Pietrasanta at length here, in order to show the different

historiographical dimensions at work. He begins his work by claiming that in

Looking at the annals of human civilization, we see the Greeks shine more than every other population in the sciences, and particularly more in every manner of literature and the fine arts, that they themselves rose so high that they do not seem to have been surpassed by subsequent populations, and not even reached by them as well...The Age of Pericles was the most excellent period, which seems to have touched the confines of human capability.165

71

163 Murphy 1793/1831: 574; Lafitau 1724/1974.164 Ceserani 2000: 182-89.165 Lo Faso Pietrasanta 1834-1842: 1.

He continues, referencing Le Roy, Stuart, the Society of Dilettanti and their capture of the

architectural treasures of Athens. But, he acknowledges,

While the foreigners deal with the travails and the inconveniences of bringing to new light such precious monuments, covered by earth and by the oblivion of the centuries, we Sicilians, who live on this classical soil, most noble theater of the power of Greek talent, must make haste to emulate them. Thus, confronted by this thought, looking more to the honor of the arts and the duty to the birthplace than to the debt of our talent, we set about to publish the monuments of Sicily....166

Then, in a digression on the Roman empire in Greece, Lo Faso Pietrasanta rather

unsubtly alludes to the impact of foreigners and their appropriation of a past that is not

their own.

If Greece saw its monuments restored and protected, and Sicily saw its neglected and passed over, this same circumstance ceded greater value to the buildings that remain to us; for indeed they are still virgins, and not counterfeited by a foreign hand, and yet they are preserved.167

Clearly, his comments suggest that Sicily’s monuments are “purer” and thus more

“Greek,” since they stand undiluted by Roman restoration. But, these lines seem to

intimate more critical sentiments towards contemporary foreigners as well.

The words of Lo Faso Pietrasanta are a document not just to the interaction of

Sicilian and non-Sicilian scholarship, but once again to the increased prominence of the

Greeks and archaeology in people’s understanding of western Mediterranean history. For

the first time, histories of Sicily and other parts of the western Mediterranean were not

just collections of literary references only concerned with site locations. Hellenism and

the cumulative experiences of travelers and scholars, along with the somewhat crude

excavations of Biscari and others, acted together to give new purpose to the study of the

western Mediterranean. In the new way of thinking about the world, Greek culture—the

epitome of human achievement in the eyes of early nineteenth-century western Europe—

had not been exclusive to Greece, nor had it entirely ended (although purists would

perhaps say that it peaked with the age of Perikles and steadily went downhill from

there). Instead, many people began to see Greek culture as an undying set of traditions

and virtues, which were then passed on to other cultures and parts of the world,

72

166 Ibid.: 4.167 Ibid.: 5.

ultimately culminating with the success of Christianity and modern western European

culture.

This interpretation of the Greeks and their legacy created a new narrative for

European identity, but, at the same time, it demanded a presentation of Greek history that

met prevailing historiographic norms. While grand histories of Rome and Italy had been

in circulation for some time, the widespread publication of Greek histories did not occur

until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, partly because of the exigency for

ancient parallels that fit the new modern political situation. In a posthumous (1839)

edition to William Mitford’s History of Greece, his brother wrote a bibliographical

account of the author, which included a defense of Mitford’s original 1784 criticism of

Greek political forms. In response to his peers’ petition to ancient democracy as the

model political institution, Mitford had written a full Greek history, consciously making

comparisons between ancient Greece and his own period. His purpose was, his brother

insisted,

to show defects in their [i.e. Greek] institutions,...the unfortunate condition of a very large portion of the population placed under the rule of their government, and at the same time to show that the institution of those states...were not applicable to the very different condition of the people, and to the widely extended empire of Britain.168

The fact that Mitford’s brother felt the need to write an apologia makes it fairly obvious

that Mitford’s criticism of the Greeks fell on at least a small contingent of harshly

dissonant ears. The reaction is evidenced by the quick publication of several alternative

Greek histories thereafter, including those of Thirwall, Grote, and Goethe, among others.

The appearance of traditional “histories” of Greece allowed for other

developments as well, however. The structures of the histories were loosely

chronological, beginning with a mythical time extrapolated from the references in Homer,

Hesiod, Herodotus, and Pausanias and usually concluding with the campaigns of

Alexander. But, the histories were also organized around discrete phases and topics,

including ancient colonization. Treatments of colonization in these early histories, like

those of Mitford and Grote, handle the evidence in a fairly straightforward way, relying

73

168 Mitford 1839: xli.

primarily on literary accounts. For the western Mediterranean, the explanations of

colonial settlement and indigenous populations are what one would probably expect from

British scholars of that period. Mitford, for one, described the Greek settlement of

Sicily’s coasts like so:

It is indeed remarkable that the Greeks appear never to have coveted inland territories: their active temper led them always to maritime situations; and if driven from these, they sought still others of the same kind, however remote from their native country, rather than be excluded from the means which the sea affords for communication with all the world. Accordingly the Italian and Sicilian Greeks, and not less the African colonies, maintained constant intercourse with the country of their forefathers....169

Yet the inclusion of ancient colonization within the grander narrative of Greek

history meant more than it being another phase in a sequence of events. Colonization was

the means by which Greek culture was passed to the west. By focusing on colonization,

scholars could directly tie the history of the western Mediterranean, and thus, of Rome,

Christianity and western Europe, to that of the ancient Greeks, making the circle of

Hellenism complete. Even Mitford, who found such fault in Greek institutions, seemed

unable to disembed his history of the concept of a cultural continuity between “the

Greeks” and their western European “descendents.” He speaks of Greek colonization in

terms of a “spread” of Greek culture in which “the ramification of the Grecian people

from the small country distinguished by the name of Greece did not thus end. In the

course of the following history the migration which gave origin to flourishing Grecian

colonies in Gaul and Spain, and which seems to have made the distant island of Britain

known, even by name, to the Greeks will require notice.”170

Intrinsic to the “spread” of Greek culture was a concept of culture exchange from

Greeks to non-Greek populations. For some scholars, like Grote, this exchange was not

one-way. Early in his first volume, Grote argued that,

The names of Orpheus and Musaeus...represent facts of importance in the history of the Grecian mind—the gradual influx of Thracian, Phrygian, and Egyptian religious ceremonies and feelings, and the increasing diffusion of special mysteries, schemes for

74

169 Ibid.: 349.170 Ibid.: 351.

religious purification, and orgies..., in honour of some particular god,-- distinct both from the public solemnities and from the gentile solemnities of primitive Greece....171

The influence of new religious ideas on Greek religion, both pre-Homeric and

later, is a motif to which Grote returns somewhat frequently, as is the idea that Greek

culture was perpetually influenced by foreign cultures. Non-Greek religious ideas “found

their way into the Grecian worship” by means of, for example, deities (Dionysus and

Demeter), practice (ritual purification and orgies), and religious institutions (priesthoods

and initiated cults). Interestingly, Grote designated women as the key movers of “extra-

Hellenic” religion into Greek religious practices, particularly in colonial contexts.172 For

Grote, this type of piecemeal composition in many ways defined the character of early

Greek religion. He described how “It was, as a general rule, the spontaneous product of

many separate tribes and localities, imitation and propagation operating as subordinate

causes; it was moreover a primordial faith, as far as our means of information enable us

to discover.”173

Whether scholars saw mutual exchange or an exclusive transfer of culture from

Greeks to natives, however, the idea that Greek culture had spread to the western

Mediterranean forced scholars to address the issue of indigenous populations and cultural

change. In the following section, I show how this fact cannot be neglected if we truly

want to understand 1) how people have written about cultural, and specifically religious,

change in the western Mediterranean and 2) what these changes tell us about colonial

religious practice and indigenous society. Recent studies have given the impression that

earlier narratives of ancient colonization largely overlooked the role of indigenous groups

in the processes of cultural and religious change. But, the lack of attention to the earlier

scholarship has led many modern archaeologists to misunderstand the evidence from

antiquity.

Academic and external developments were fostering interest in indigenous

populations and concepts of cultural change, with significant consequences for later

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171 Grote 1888: 21.172 Ibid.: 23, 27.173 Ibid.: 49

research. Archaeology was challenging the dominant stance of Hellenism, although with

admittedly little success for most of Europe. As Morris has shown, “Not only were

archaeological data unlike the evidence with which most classicists worked, but they also

related to different aspects of antiquity. The insight they offered into everyday life and

their potential for tracing change over time could pose threats to the ways of talking

about Greece which Hellenism made legitimate.”174 Hellenism prevailed in most

circumstances, but in others, like those related to Sicily and other parts of the western

Mediterranean, the growing field of archaeology inspired and renewed interest in native

populations. I say “renewed” because, as I have shown in this and the previous section,

the appeal of “the local” seems to have long been present in the historiography. For the

nineteenth century and later, the topics of colonization, cultural change, and indigenous

societies continued to draw interest, but a fixation on religion also was evident. History

was indeed being written differently in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with

major ramifications for how we have come to understand religion and religious change in

the context of colonization and the west Mediterranean.

The late 19th and 20th century: the development of Hellenization theory and the

postcolonial reaction

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had brought the topic of ancient

colonization into the foreground of ancient history and had done so via two paths. The

first path was through the inclusion of Greek colonization as a subnarrative of Greek

histories. The second avenue was through the inclusion of Greek (and Phoenician, to

some extent) colonization in individual histories of Sicily. I have already mentioned how

earlier sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors initiated this somewhat independent

trajectory of scholarship on Sicily and the western Mediterranean and how they fostered

an early interest in the native populations of the island. Throughout the nineteenth

century, the attention to colonization and its consequences increased. The literary record

continued to be the primary source of evidence in historical investigations, thus

predisposing much of the scholarship towards a Hellenocentric perspective. But, as I

76

174 Morris 1994: 24.

showed above, archaeology had already provided new data to counterbalance the focus

on the Greeks.

In this section, I examine the nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical

treatments of Sicily. The impression we have of this scholarship has generally been that

its narratives often overlook or even denigrate the role of indigenous groups in the

colonization process and the cultural changes of the western Mediterranean during the

Archaic period. Recent scholars have emphasized how nineteenth-century and early

twentieth-century scholarship derived from the colonial and imperial projects of western

Europe in the late nineteenth century, and thus depict cultural contact and change with

colonialist bias, often by means of the Hellenization model. I argue, however, that our

recent assessments may be too general. The scholarship of these centuries, particularly

from non-Anglophone writers, continued the historiographic tradition of interest in

indigenous groups. While many of the scholars do seem to follow the typical

Hellenization model for many elements of cultural change, there is a major exception in

how people discussed religious change. Religion was something special and, in the eyes

of this scholarship, remained a “native” aspect of culture even while everything else

“became Greek.” Failing to notice this pattern, I think, has permitted our understanding

of long-term cultural and religious change in the western Mediterranean to stagnate.

The work of the nineteenth century seems intrigued by native Sicilian

populations. Much of this is due to the authority of Thucydides, whose description of

Sicily’s pre-Greek inhabitants in terms of distinct ethnic groups (VI.2:2-5) seems to have

motivated much of the literature. As early as 1810, for example, Pietro Longo and Desiré

Raoul-Rochette engaged in what seems to have been a lively discussion on whether the

Elymians really were the descendents of legendary Trojan immigrants, either

corroborating or challenging the record set by Thucydides.175 The acute concern with the

identity of indigenous populations reveals a desire not just to explain colonial settlement

in the west, but also to rationalize certain parallels between elements of Greek and native

culture, particularly in religion.176

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175 P. Longo 1810; Raoul-Rochette 1815.176 contra Van Compernolle 1990.

This dimension of the scholarship seems particularly pertinent since modern

scholars have often assumed that early interpretations of indigenous religion were driven

exclusively by Hellenism and rather simplistic models of cultural change, as captured in

sentiments like those of John Addington Symonds, who claimed that, “All civilized

nations, in all that concerns the activity of the intellect, are colonies of Hellas.”177 Raoul-

Rochette and Longo, however, along with subsequent scholars like Marrone (1827),

Castone (1828), and Ferrugia (1834), had somewhat different motives than simply

proving Greek colonial preeminence. Adolf Holm also departed from the “model,” and

wrote a history of the island modeled upon the works of Ernst Curtius and Grote (to

whom he also dedicated the first volume). Although Holm composed the history without

any obvious predecessors for a holistic Sicilian history, he drew on the research of many

earlier Italian and foreign scholars, including the budding research of Sicilian

archaeologists.178 The influence of archaeology on his analysis appears especially

transparent in the open admiration he had for the work of the Sicilian archaeologist Paolo

Orsi in his last volume, published in 1898.

While Holm’s use of the archaeological material and his construal of the Greeks

were methodologically quite different from that of his predecessors, his treatment of

Greek and indigenous religion also deviated from supposedly typical nineteenth-century

norms.179 Instead of attributing Sicily’s religion to the dominance of a single group, Holm

characterized it as a product of mixed influences.

The pressing question about the religion of the Sikels cannot be answered easily and simply, as there exist almost no definite reports on this subject. And yet for a thorough understanding of ancient Sicilian history, which derives from the interplay of three elements - the Sikel, the Oriental, and the Hellenic - it is absolutely necessary to know the contribution of each to the culture of the island. It falls to us, therefore, to embellish the incomplete reports on the religious culture of the Sikels with interpolations rooted in

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177 Symonds 1880: 401; cited in Dietler 2005: 33.178 Christ 1999: 60.179 Christ (1996; 1999) provides an excellent overview of Holm’s methodology and his historiographic role in studies of Greek history.

fact.180

For Holm, understanding the religion of Sicily was vital for even a basic grasp of its

history. Accordingly, one of the challenges for the historian was to identify each group—

Sikel, Eastern, and Greek— and their contribution to Sicilian culture and religion.

Elymian cults, for example, were explained as the result of the mixing of Phoenicians,

Sikans, Persians, and Trojans. The identification of these different religious elements led

Holm to search out why certain cults seemed more predominant in Sicilian worship. In

more than one instance he claimed that Greek and Sicilian religions were not only

similar, but that the cults usually attributed to Greek religion were actually Sicilian in

origin. He alternatively allowed that some Greek cults surpassed others in “worship and

significance” because their deities corresponded to Sicilian religious antecedents. In

either case, the “significance” of a later Greek cult was determined by its perceived

relationship to earlier native religious practice.

The cult of Demeter was one of his chief examples. Some scholars had insisted

that the cult to Demeter and Persephone was a Greek import, first brought to the island by

Syracusan colonists, but Holm challenged this assumption, stating that he believed that

the Sikels were worshipping Demeter prior to Greek colonization.181 He argued further

that while in normal circumstances he would agree that the Greeks first brought the cult

to Demeter to Sicily, the evidence associated with the Enna Demeter led him to suspect

otherwise. He reasoned that,

... the Enna Demeter was the oldest of all [these deities], and in addition, as we know, the entire island was regarded as devoted to Demeter to a most extraordinary degree. If all this derived from the Greeks, then one ought to be able to demonstrate not just that Demeter was exceptionally worshipped in the eight large Greek cities of the island, which influenced the interior of Sicily, but also where the source of this cult lies, further back, in the Greek homeland...And why should Demeter not already have been worshipped by the Sikels? Why should precisely that assumption not be valid, which most simply would explain the persistently strong worship of the goddess on

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180 Holm 1870: 75. “Die sich aufdrängende Frage nach der Religion der Sikeler lässt sich nicht leicht und einfach beantworten, da fast alle bestimmten Angaben darüber fehlen. Und doch ist es für ein gründliches Verständniss der Geschichte des alten Siciliens, die auf der Wechselwirkung der drei Elemente, des sikelischen, orientalischen und hellenischen beruht, unumgänglich nothwendig, den Beitrag, welchen ein jedes derselben auch zu der Kultur der Insel geliefert hat, zu kennen. Wir haben deshalb die Pflicht, die mangelhaften Nachrichten über die Religionsverhältnisse der Sikeler durch in der Sache begründete Combinationem zu ergänzen.”181 Ibid.

the island?182

By questioning both the link between colonial and motherland religion and the

“Greek” origins of later Sicilian cults, Holm cast doubt on two of Hellenization theory’s

most central tenets and their validity for interpretations of Greek and indigenous religion

in Archaic Sicily. First, he emphasized that in order to call instances of Greek colonial

worship “Greek,” one had to prove that the source of the cult actually corresponded to

practice in the Greek homeland. Holm used the example of Syracuse and Corinth in this

argument, showing that the Syracusan Demeter did not have a Corinthian correlate. Holm

may have confused the evidence associated with Demeter and Athena at both Corinth and

Syracuse, but the point is still valid: he doubted the supposedly universal assumption that

colonial religion was an exact replica of its mother-city’s. Second, his analysis of the

Sicilian origin of more successful later Greek cults seems to oppose the classic model of

Hellenization, as current research has conceived it. Holm did admit that by the later

classical and Hellenistic periods, Sicily worshipped primarily deities of the Greek

pantheon.183 But, as shown above, he also credited the success of particular Greek cults to

the similarities they shared with earlier native gods or even their non-Greek origin.

Holm’s interpretation offers a different reading of Greek and native religion than

might be expected from the late nineteenth century. After the publication of his first

volume in 1870, a number of other histories and publications related to Sicily appeared

shortly thereafter, some with alternative approaches. The work of Holm’s fellow German

Julius Beloch has been among the most noted—and notorious, given his rather blatant

anti-Semitic slant—but is perhaps most relevant here for his minimal consideration of the

Sicilian indigenous population.184 The absence is especially palpable in the demography-

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182 Ibid.: 77-8; “...die hennäische Demeter sei die älteste von allen, und überdies galt, wie wir wissen, die ganze Insel als in besonders hohem Grade der Demeter geweiht. Wenn dies Alles von den Griechen herstammte, so müsste nachgewiesen werden können, nicht blos, dass in den grossen, ächt griechischen Städten der Insel, welche auf das sikelische Innere Einfluss ausübten, Demeter in hervorragender Weise verehrt wurde, sondern auch, wo weiter rückwärts, in der griechischen Heimat, die Quelle dieses Kultus lag... Und warum soll Demeter nicht schon von den Sikelern verehrt worden sein? Warum soll gerade die Annahme nicht gelten, welche am einfachsten die dauernd grosse Verehrung der Göttin auf der Insel erklärt?”183 Ibid.: 117.184 Beloch 1889; 1893.

centered La Populazione della Sicilia, in which Beloch granted the native contingent only

three paragraphs of discussion in the entire book. Gallo has demonstrated how Beloch’s

use of military strength and/or industrialization to measure population predetermined his

emphasis on the Greek and Phoenician evidence.185 But, it still seems bizarre that Beloch

would count 1,000,000 Sikels, Sicans, and Elymi in the population statistics and never

discuss them in any depth.186

Other scholars also compiled histories of Sicily and the western Mediterranean.

François Lenormant published a series on Magna Grecia in French, while in England

E.A. Freeman also set out a review of Sicilian history.187 Although the two scholars used

similar methodologies, Freeman has garnered more attention from contemporary

critiques, which have targeted his overt racism and sense of imperial hierarchy, in

addition to his association with Oxford.188 These features of Freeman’s work should by

no means be disregarded, but I want to situate Freeman more in the context of the longer

term scholarly developments of Hellenization, and the particular position that religious

change and inter-cultural religious interaction held within the historiography of Sicily and

Greek colonization.

In many ways, Hellenization had its first concrete appearance as an explanatory

model in Freeman’s History of Sicily. Its extreme guise has served as the reactionary

focus for more recent postcolonial research, which recognizes descriptions like the

following as obviously problematic:

The greatness of Sicily therefore has never been strictly a native greatness...The history of Sicily up to the Roman conquest is like the history of America; it is the history of a land which became great by colonization from other lands...The greatness of Sicily was therefore essentially a colonial greatness, the greatness of communities which did not form whole nations but only parts of nations, nations of which other, and commonly larger, parts remained in their elder homes.189

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185 Gallo 1990: 134.186 Cf. Beloch 1889: 87.187 Lenormant 1881-84; Freeman 1891-94.188 De Angelis 1998; Owen 2005; Shepherd 2005.189 Freeman 1891-94: 5-6.

The bias of high empire is patent in Freeman’s research, as is his sense of modern

Europe being the direct successor of ancient Greece. Gillian Shepherd’s work on the

legacy of empire within British research about Sicily proffers an illuminating review of

Freeman’s approach, particularly, for these purposes, in introducing the function of

religion in Freeman’s analysis.190 At the heart of Freeman’s theoretical approach is the

distinction between Greek and Phoenician; that is, in Freeman’s terms, between Aryan

and Semite. This distinction bears on the entire history of Sicily for Freeman and is

ultimately fulfilled in the ascent of Christianity over Islam. In this conception of Sicilian

history, Greek colonization was equated with “the calling...against the foul and bloody

rites of Moloch and Ashtoreth,” and Greekness as “the champion of Europe...the

champion of Christendom.”191

The nod to Greek colonization as the “salvation” of the West implied that

Greekness not only rescued the world from the sins of Islam, but also from those of

heathen native barbarians. Thus, it might seem that Freeman would malign or at least

ignore the role of the indigenous population when discussing Sicily’s post-colonization

history. In fact, however, Freeman’s position on native-colonial interaction was somewhat

more complicated, especially in regard to religion. Although, for example, Freeman

claimed that, “the true Sicily is the Hellenic Sicily and none other,” he posed the early

phases of colonization as a rivalry between Greek and Phoenician military or territorial

parties; native “assimilation” to Greek military efforts, culture, and religion was not a

given. Even more unusual, we might think, is Freeman’s acceptance not just of the

longevity of indigenous religious practice in the face of colonization, but also his

contention that the Greeks “learned to worship the gods of the Sikel, to adopt them into

[their] own mythology, and to turn the legends of Greece into new shapes which better

fitted their new homes on Sicilian soil.”192 In some ways, his interpretations of Greek and

indigenous religion prefigure some of the analyses in recent reports of indigenous

religious sites: Freeman admitted difficulty in distinguishing between Greek and

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190 Shepherd 2005: 25-29.191 Freeman 1891-94: 11, 12. 192 Ibid.: 134.

indigenous Sicilian worship and deities and speculated that religious contexts served as

settings for Greek and native interaction.193

There is no doubt that E.A. Freeman rendered the indigenous population of Sicily

in disturbingly paternalistic and passive terms, even by the standards of late nineteenth-

century imperial Britain. As Shepherd has shown, “With Freeman’s magnum opus, the

notions of the superiority of the Greeks over every other group in the West and of the

superiority of the mother-city over the colony were firmly established in anglophone

scholarship of the late nineteenth century.”194 Freeman was, and remains, one of the

archetypes for (mis-)using the modern colonial analogy, but it seems that he also made

religion somewhat of an exception to the Hellenization model. Instead of a rapid

assimilation to Greek deities and religious practice, Freeman hypothesized more balance

in Greek and native religious interaction, and saw space for mutual influence. As with

many of his predecessors, religion and religious change was a different matter and, as

such, called for different interpretations of change and colonial contact.

The last thirty years of the nineteenth century witnessed the sudden availability of

several different histories of Sicily and the western Mediterranean. Over the course of the

century, Sicily had gained an even broader appeal across Europe, particularly as the

search for ancient colonization analogies intensified in tandem with the colonial

enterprises of modern western Europe. New questions were thus driving research on

Sicily. The presence of new questions also meant new answers to those questions. At the

close of the century, some scholars were stressing that Sicily and Magna Grecia were not

simply colonies of the greater country of Greece, but constituted their own regional

system, which had largely developed outside of Greek or Phoenician influences prior to

the eighth century BC. Ettore Pais, for example, published his Storia della Sicilia e della

Magna Grecia in 1894. In it, he critiqued earlier scholarship that separated historical

developments within Sicily from those of the rest of Magna Grecia, thereby implicitly

faulting histories that valued colony and mother-city relationships over more regional-

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193 Compare, for example, Freeman’s arguments on pp. 170 and 152 with those of De Miro 1962; Albanese Procelli 2003; and Hodos 2006.194 Shepherd 2005: 29.

network ties. Even more significantly, he argued that the textual foundation legends were

products of a later epoch. Pais therefore steered the scholarship in a new direction by

suggesting that the core of earlier historical methodology—the projection of later Greek

sources onto the events of the eighth century BC—was fundamentally flawed.

Pais did not entirely disparage the use of the literary record, but he did insist that

his peers look for additional independent sources of data, a call that certainly resounded

among the growing ranks of archaeologists in Sicily. I have already shown that the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries experienced a turn away from an exclusively

literary interest in the past to a new appreciation for monuments, particularly Greek

temples. The cumulative travel experiences and drawing collections of J.P. Houël, J.

Hittorf and L. Zanth, as well as R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein had made vast quantities

of factual details—specifically on Greek temple architecture—widely accessible.195

Meanwhile, the work of Orsi and other archaeologists in Italy had rapidly expanded the

repertoire of archaeological data available to ancient historians.196

Consequently, research prerogatives of the early twentieth century extended

beyond politics and literary legends to include more cultural and social history, as well as

prehistory. For the western Mediterranean especially, this meant a resurgence of interest

in pre-colonial populations. Nowhere was this shift towards art, archaeology, and socio-

cultural history exemplified more for Sicily than in the series laid out by Biagio Pace,

Arte e civilità della Sicilia antica, between 1935 and 1946. Pace was sharply critical of

earlier work, and accused scholarship of the fifty years prior of having only offered a

prejudiced judgment of Sicilian history “as part and nothing other than part of Greek

civilization.”197 In contrast, his own research provided a synthesis of the archaeological

data of indigenous, pre-colonial sites and an argument for the autonomy of Sicilian

cultural developments and their sharp separation from those of mainland Greece. The

preface of the book revealed Pace’s very different priorities, the more methodological one

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195 Mertens (1986) provides a synthetic historiography of architectural research in Sicily and Magna Grecia. 196 E.g. Orsi 1893; Ibid. 1895; Ibid. 1899.197 Pace 1935, vol 1: 90. “Il quadro che la critica e l’erudizione degli ultimi cinquant’anni ci hanno offerto della più antica storia di Sicilia ci ha avvezzato a giudicare nel suo intimo, in modo implicito e pregiudiziale, come parte e nulla’altro che parte della civiltà ellenica o, se mai, come vera appendice coloniale e provinciale di essa...

being that, “Nothing is more expressive of civilization than art... the characters of a

certain time and of a certain society represent the intimate truth on which both its

conscience and its creative capacity would be founded.”198 Slightly further on, Pace

stated what was both the second difference as well as his main argument, that, “The

indigenous characteristics survive up to the conquest of Greek civilization, under whose

forms Sicilian modes and taste reappear.”199

Arte e civilità della Sicilia antica is a fascinating artifact of Sicilian

historiography, but the treatment of Sicilian and Greek religion is a particular gem.

Religion is largely a non-issue in Pace’s discussion of the different Sikel periods and the

colonization movements by Greeks and Phoenicians.200 The third volume, however,

devoted the entire fourth book to “La Vita Religiosa” which ran an amazing 332 pages

(and that’s excluding an appendix about the Sicilian presence at Panhellenic sanctuaries

in Greece!).201 While others had focused on distinguishing which elements of Sicilian

religiosity stemmed from non-Greek religions and which had been brought by Greek

colonists, the religious evidence had a different purpose for Pace. In sum, he desired “a

representation of the eclectic reality of the Siceliot religious world, in its constituent

elements, that is, from the time in which the mixing took place, which is given to us from

writers, from ancient monuments, and from survivals that in this field give us such

valuable elements.”202

Pace partially achieved this goal through the innovative use of stratigraphically-

obtained archaeological evidence. He showed, for example, how a prehistoric settlement

preceded the Greek sanctuary of the Dioscuri at Akragas, citing the excavated remains of

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198 Ibid.: vii. “Nulla è espressivo della civiltà meglio dell’arte....i caratteri del proprio tempo e della propria civiltà rappresentano l’intima verità su cui esso fonda la sua coscienza la sua capacità creatrice.”199 Ibid.: x. “Le caratteristiche indigene sopravvivonno alla conquista della civiltà ellenica, sotto le cui forme i modi e il gusto siculo reappaiono...”200 The only mention of religious material is in passing, mostly of a few temples (e.g. the temple at Monte San Mauro near Lentini).201 It is interesting to note that of these 332 pages, the first 100 discussed “cults of prehellenic origin.” The rest of the book contains “The Olympiad of the Hellenic colonies” (pp. 533-626), “Religion of the Phoenician-Carthaginian alliance” and “Foreign cults” (pp. 627-86); and “Entaphia” (pp. 687-721).202 Pace 1945, vol 3: 454. “Ma si tenta di rappresentare, nei suoi elementi costituivi, la realtà eclettica del mondo religioso siceliota, cioè dal tempo in cui la mistione è in atto, quale ci è dato sorprendere dalle notizie degli scrittori, dai monumenti antichi e dalle sopravvivenze che in questo campo ci danno così preziosi elementi.”

a hearth with a large quantity of ashes and charcoal with burnt bone, rectangular and

round altars, as well as votive trenches full of clay votive statuettes dating from the

seventh to the third century BCE. The stratigraphic relationships, for Pace, established the

longevity of the cult and the sanctuary as simply a sacred area “della madre e delle ninfe,

o paides or metéres indigene, più o meno rivestite di forme ellenizzate.”203

Pace addressed the issue of the Hellenization of religion in Sicily directly. He

construed a process in which early similarities enabled a “cosi compiuta fusione”

between the two religious worlds of Greek and native.204 This approach, however, was

somewhat problematic and in more than one case, resulted in a rather circular handling of

the evidence. While Pace believed that a fusion had occurred between Greek and native

elements, he also thought it possible to extricate an indigenous “nucleus” from later

hellenized religion.205 Most of his examples of this process, however, illustrated the

impossibility of dividing the separate elements with any certainty. The section “Divinità

di natura,” for instance, vacillated between seeing those deities as adhering to indigenous

tradition or as embodying “the Hellenic concept of animist personification.”206

Problematic as his approach could be, Pace’s driving point was that certain

indigenous characteristics, including religion, continued through the superimposing of

Greek religious elements, even “after a period of profound and congenial hellenization of

all the aspects of island life.”207 The underlying motif of indigenous religious

conservatism in the face of Hellenization was, of course, nothing new and, as I have

shown, was grounded in a longer-term academic precedent. Pace, however, struck a

sharper chord by asserting a mutual religious syncretism and the active influence that

native groups had on the colonizing Greek culture. Contemporary commentators put it

this way: “If this reviewer understands it right, the problem is not the Hellenization of the

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203 Ibid.: 507. Not all of Pace’s analyses were as progressive in the use of archaeological material, however. His association, for example, of Aphrodite with vague notions of Sicilian fecundity and the scattered evidence from literary, epigraphic, and numismatic material is more typical. 204 Ibid.: 455.205 Ibid.: 510.206 Ibid.: 498. The following examples illustrate the difficulty Pace had in reconciling his generalizations with specific evidence: the cult of Demeter and Kore (pp. 464-71); Athena and Artemis (p. 496; 531-32); Aphrodite (pp. 507-510); Hephaestus and Adranum (pp. 519-20).207 Ibid.: 510.

Siculi but the Siculization of the Hellenes. Influenced by the Siculan environment, the

Siceliot genius from Empedocles and Stesichorus to Archimedes and Theocritus

developed along lines that were really Italian, and Siceliot history moved on from Gelon

to Dionysius and Agathocles to find its fulfillment in Rome.”208

Pace’s work received mixed reviews. Several critics immediately discounted his

efforts on account of “careless scholarship” or the absence of particular textual passages.

Other publications explicitly downplayed the explanatory power of archaeology,

particularly from indigenous sites, and relegated it to certifying literary dates. Bérard, for

example wrote, “Nous aurons donc à rechercher maintenant dans quelle mesure les

données de la tradition se trouvent vérifiées ou au contraire infirmées dans quelle mesure

elles peuvent être rectifiées our précisées par les données archéologiques.”209 For many,

the problematics of the textual record remained the key interpretative issue for western

Mediterranean history, while the archaeological material served only to support the

literary record.

Others, however, similar to Pace, had also grasped the significance of the

archaeological record and the new avenues of research that it could inspire. In 1948, T.J.

Dunbabin set out to supplement the literary analyses with a fuller archaeological record.

Franco de Angelis has explored Dunbabin’s innovations in detail, noting in particular his

“pioneering efforts” to evaluate the prehistoric period and to surpass the traditional

historical narrative by investigating issues of settlement and territory, agriculture, trade,

art and architecture, and cultural contact.210 As De Angelis has shown, serious

methodological flaws undercut the advances Dunbabin made. His method often relied on

dubious arguments from silence and oversights of the contradictory evidence. His

assessment of the Sikel population as a “fairly peaceable people” was achieved only by

ignoring Orsi’s excavations at Finocchito and Pantalica, as well as Pace’s only slightly

earlier analysis of indigenous military fortifications.211

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208 Scramuzza 1938: 337.209 J. Bérard 1941: 18.210 De Angelis 1998: 540-41.211 Dunbabin 1948: 113; Tréziny 1986: 189; De Angelis 1998: 542.

Moreover, Dunbabin’s double focus on native-Greek relations and western Greek-

Aegean homeland interaction was heavily influenced by colonialist and imperialist

archaeologies, as defined by Bruce Trigger.212 Dunbabin freely admitted to using his

experience as an Australian living in Britain as a model for The Western Greeks: “I have

drawn much on the parallel to the relations between colonies and mother country

provided in Australia and New Zealand. Here political independence is combined with

almost complete cultural dependence, on which the colonials pride themselves.”213 The

bearing of this experience is clear in his assumption that Greeks and natives remained

sharply separated in all cultural interaction, from the moment of colonization onwards.

More recent research has perhaps exaggerated the sway of Dunbabin to some

degree, particularly since his views were not entirely undisputed amongst his colleagues

(see, for example, the 1949 review by R.M. Cook). Moreover, a discrepancy between

Anglophone and non-anglophone attitudes is perceptible in the scholarship that followed

Dunbabin’s publication. Several of the English and North American reviews are, on the

whole, positive towards Dunbabin’s contributions.214 M.E. White, for one, characterized

Dunbabin’s treatment of “the reasons for the complete Hellenization of the natives of

Sicily, instead of a cultural fusion between Greek and Sikel elements such as was found

among the Italic peoples neighboring on the Greek cities in South Italy” as “excellent.”215

Italian and French reviews were not quite as friendly, perhaps partially due to the earlier

dissemination of Pace’s work. Within both audiences, the suitability (or lack thereof) of

the colonial analogy was never addressed explicitly. Yet, the non-anglophone scholarship

did judge Dunbabin more harshly, particularly his assumptions of a rapid hellenization of

native populations in hinterland territories and the minimal distinction he drew between

individual native populations (e.g. western Sicily versus indigenous populations around

Locri).216

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212 Trigger 1984.213 Dunbabin 1948: vii.214 E.g. Charanis 1949; White 1949.215 White 1949: 45.216 Lepore 1965: 101; Maiuri 1951: 16.

In addition to the oversight of the distinction between English and non-English

reactions to Dunbabin, recent analyses have made a caricature out of Dunbabin by

neglecting the contradictory remarks that he made in regard to Hellenization and religion.

He wrote, for example, “that there is Sikel influence…is not to be entirely excluded, but

if so it must have been exercised indirectly, as part of a general Sikel contribution to

colonial religion and spirit, as there are no direct proofs of the participation of people of

Sikel descent in the cult.”217 The fact that one of the paragons of classic Hellenization

theory afforded, even if grudgingly, some interaction between natives and Greeks in the

context of religion should signal the need for more refinement in both our assessment of

the Hellenization historiography and our understanding of the ancient religious evidence.

Most current understandings of the Hellenization historiography have posed its

development in biaxial terms, with “traditional” Hellenization theory dominating

scholarship up until the 1960s when the research principles of the previous century

provided grounds for a postcolonial backlash. I have presented a more complicated

picture of the historiography, however, in which “typical” understandings of indigenous

culture as less civilized and of hellenization as the success of an inherently superior

Greek culture have been tempered by what would seem to be a progressive, nearly

postcolonial, conception of religious change. Granted, by 1960 there were still many

elements of the scholarship with which to find fault. The command of the literary record

remained strong, often consigning archaeological data to speaking roles only when texts

were silent. At other times, the historical sources and archaeological evidence presented

conflicting narratives, a situation in which even some archaeologists were hesitant to

become involved.218 Given such a status, the archaeological picture was largely

impressionistic and was manipulated to fit varying models.219 The literary basis of

research had other consequences, too: studies remained largely Hellenocentric, promoting

the idea of “civilizing Greeks,” underestimating the role of the Phoenicians and other

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217Dunbabin 1948: 175. It should be noted here that Dunbabin is not referring to a specific cult within Greek religion in this statement, but instead to a more abstract and homogenous concept of “Greek cult.” 218 Cf. Bernabò Brea 1966: 142-43.219 Cf. J. Bérard 1941: 289; Van Compernolle 1950-51: 183-85; Maiuri 1951: 15; Adamesteanu 1961: 48-49; Boardman 1964; Lepore 1965: 95-100.

groups, and primarily concerned with political history. Dietler has argued that even today

“the Hellenocentric tradition remains strong and one still finds synthetic treatments of the

history of the western Mediterranean in which indigenous societies and the Phoenicians

are largely absent or are included only insofar as they happen to intrude on what is

essentially a Greek story.”220

Many scholars have lucidly discussed the sway of the literary tradition on

research of the earlier and mid-twentieth century, and especially on debates over

precolonization, Mycenaean influences, and colony-motherland relations.221 While the

literary evidence remained influential, however, the cumulative efforts of the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by archaeologists, anthropologists, and

publications like those by Pais, Pace, and Dunbabin had fostered archaeology’s

acceptance in the study of the western Mediterranean. Furthermore, while this work more

generally signaled an intellectual shift towards the social and cultural face of history, it

also threw certain topics into high relief.222 Topics like pre-colonization and mother-city

influence were definitely part of this, but also present were topics like the culture contact

and acculturation between Greeks and natives. As Morel put it, “to the extent that the

Greek colonies were Greek cities founded in a non-Greek setting, the study of the forms

and the results of this juxtaposition plays, of necessity, a vital role in research on

colonization.”223 I have shown, however, that this “almost inevitable” line of

investigation is one that grew out of a much more enduring interest in native populations

more generally.224

This aspect of the historiography is significant for any study of Greek and

indigenous religion in the context of Archaic colonization. It is especially important for

showing where and how many contemporary scholars have perhaps missed the point in

their interpretations of the Hellenization historiography. Postcolonial scholarship on

Sicily and the western Mediterranean has emphasized that earlier scholarship interpreted

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220 Dietler 2005: 242.221 Cf. Morel 1984; Van Dommelen 1998; Dietler 2005; Owen 2005.222 Lepore 1965: 102-108.223 Morel 1984: 124.224 Ibid.

“cultural” (broadly defined, but including religious) changes amongst indigenous

populations according to a straightforward, acculturative model that reflected colonialist

and Hellenist bias. Yet, where postcolonialists have critiqued their predecessors for over-

simplifying explanations of cultural change, they themselves have, in some ways, failed

to distinguish between varying historiographic treatments of separate sets of evidence. In

many ways, this lack of distinction has created a straw-man argument for the

Hellenization versus postcolonial debate. In 1998, James Cusick revealed a similar straw-

man argument to other anthropologists by showing how the supposedly dominant

“acculturation” model of scholarship fifty years earlier was actually a construction of the

current academic imagination.225 This is a key point for this dissertation since, as I have

shown, religion and religious change were treated very differently than other types of

cultural change within the majority of historical scholarship on Sicily and the western

Mediterranean.

There are several reasons for the lack of distinctions within recent historiography,

but the ones related directly to the use of acculturation theory as a historical tool in the

western Mediterranean seem most revealing to me. Acculturation’s focus on “culture”

appealed to archaeologists and art historians as a way of explaining changes in the

material evidence, especially in situations where literary sources were absent.

Acculturation theory and its place in archaeology already have a vast bibliography and

here, I avoid making any excessive summations. But I do want to look at two specific

developments that I think fostered acculturation studies in the western Mediterranean:

artifact classification schemes and early attempts at defining “Hellenization.” I narrow

these broad developments by summarizing the contributions of individual projects, those

being, respectively, John Boardman’s methodology in the 1964 edition of The Greeks

Overseas and Michel Py’s presentation of the term “Hellenization” in 1968 which I

alluded to at the beginning of this chapter. These examples also connect with the more

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225 Cusick 1998. Unfortunately, many of the Americanists did not really pay attention to what Cusick said, partially because Cusick did not offer explanation for why an awareness of acculturation theory’s varied historiography could affect the field’s ongoing research and theoretical approaches.

specific issue of religion in the Hellenization historiography, as I explain in more detail

below.

John Boardman’s 1964 book The Greeks Overseas is a candid example of how

ideas about acculturation infiltrated the Hellenization model.226 Classical treatments of

the transmission of ideas and values between different cultures developed largely

independent of North Americanists’ formulation of “acculturation theory,” often being

more explicit in seeing “acculturation” as the transfer of a superior culture to more

inferior ones. M.L. West, for example, claimed that “culture, like all forms of gas, tends

to spread from where it is densest into adjacent areas where it is less dense.” Boardman’s

work is part of this Classical trajectory more than contemporary anthropological and

Americanist discussions of acculturation theory and perhaps because of this, his work

often strikes a more overtly colonialist tone. Indeed, most reviews of Boardman’s

research has been on this latter feature.227 Indeed, the colonialist perspective is difficult to

ignore when even the most recent edition of The Greeks Overseas includes assessments

such as, “At any rate it is clear that in most places the Greeks and Sicels got on well

enough, even if only in the relationship of master and slave…The natives weighed their

new prosperity, brought by the Greeks, against the sites and land they had lost to them,

and were generally satisfied—or at least had short memories.”228 Important as an

awareness of Boardman’s prejudice is, however, it seems more imperative that we

understand the how and why of Boardman’s contribution, especially towards the

conceptual reification of Hellenization.

Boardman was a student of John Beazley while he was at Oxford and the effects

of that tutelage are evident in Boardman’s research. Prior to 1964, Boardman had already

applied Beazley’s methods of artifact classification to several of his own studies,

including selected collections at the Ashmolean and Cape Town museums as well as his

research on Greek seal-stones.229 The inclination towards artifact classification and

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226 West 1997: 1.227 Cf. Van Dommelen 1998: 19.228 Boardman 1999: 190.229 Boardman 1961; Ibid. 1963.

description is also present in The Greeks Overseas, particularly when Boardman

describes the differences between, for example, western colonial and Aegean Greek art or

between Greek and south Italian bronzes. Classification invariably involves comparison

and for Boardman this was effected through the comparison of specific artistic attributes,

especially those that he saw occurring in Greek and indigenous contexts. In doing so,

Boardman created a catalogue of Greek and native artifacts that fulfilled his purpose set

out in the 1964 edition’s preface: “We shall be looking for the material effects of their

[the Greeks’] presence on foreign soil—their relations with and effect upon foreign

populations and the effect of the natives upon them.”230

The acculturation of indigenous populations to a superior Greek culture was a

given for Boardman, and it was reinforced through a method of artistic classification. Yet

the impact of acculturation theory on interpretations of the western Mediterranean

extended beyond simply changes in ceramic manufacture or fibula types. Boardman

claimed that, “With their colonizing and trade in the west and the north, the Greeks made

contact with people who were less advanced culturally, and we are able to observe the

beginnings of the spread of Greek civilization into Italy and western Europe.”231 Inherent

to this “spread” was the “immediate impact” of Greek culture and ideas among

indigenous populations, an idea that has been maintained by Boardman up through all of

the editions of The Greeks Overseas.232 Thus, it comes as a surprise that even Boardman

“might expect to find some native influence in the matter of religion or customs upon the

newly-come Greeks.”233 Boardman, in truth, did not elaborate much further than this,

stating only that the Greeks may have deliberately sited their extra-mural sanctuaries on

pre-existent native cult locations.234 In a book claiming that “in the west the Greeks had

nothing to learn, much to teach,” however, even the most minor admission is telling.

A strident backlash against this logic occurred amongst archaeologists and

western Mediterranean scholars after 1965. I have already mentioned the longer-term

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230 Boardman 1964: 21.231 Ibid.: 22.232 Ibid.: 201; Boardman 1999: 190.233 Boardman 1999: 190.234 Ibid.

shift towards socio-cultural history in general, which had the result of increasing

archaeological activity and engaging a broader range of scholars across the western

Mediterranean. The more significant impetuses, however, were the radical changes in

former European colonies. Between 1960 and 1965, Britain and France almost

completely abandoned their colonies in Africa and in France and North Africa, the

Algerian War was massively traumatic leading to large numbers of military and civilian

deaths in both areas and ultimately to the collapse of the Fourth French Republic. It was

within this context in 1968 that Michel Py challenged the field to clarify the term

“Hellenization” and its application to different parts of the western Mediterranean. As I

noted above, he proposed that Hellenization occurred at three different levels: material

culture, techniques of production and representation, and the more nebulous level of

‘principes’ (including usage, language, and religious beliefs). Hellenization could occur at

all, any one, or none of these levels. Similarly, he argued that not all categories of

evidence testified to Hellenization in the same way. In his words, a single Greek sherd

found in a particular place should not indicate the same degree of Hellenization as the use

of the Greek alphabet would. His close study of several sites in southern France also

accentuated the gradual and late scale of Hellenization and a strong continuity of

indigenous traditions, especially among inland sites. The oppidum of Nages, for example,

revealed a complex and gradual urban development that seemed to combine certain

Greek urban planning with the “Gallic protohistoric” building styles and techniques.235

Even less variation was seen in the finds, as 74% of the ceramics recovered from Nages

were still “indigène” at the end of the third century BCE.236

Research by scholars in France and elsewhere came to show that this continuity of

indigenous traditions existed for an especially long period at the level of ‘principes’ and

religious expression. Lévêque postulated a synthesis of Greek and native religious

traditions which were both eclipsed by and incorporated into the imperial framework of

Rome in the third century BCE.237 Prosdocimi similarly argued for a strong local element

94

235 Py 1968: 95-96.236 Py 1968: 94; Py and Py 1969: 117.237 Lévêque 1973: 43-66.

within the later classical Greek colonial religions.238 In a series of articles in Kokalos

published in the 1960s and 70s, several scholars, including Martorana, Manni, Fiorentini,,

and De Miro used new archaeological data to explore religion and religious sites as

places of bilateral cultural exchange.

Since the initial focus on religious interaction, a more general shift away from an

exclusively Hellenic perspective of the past seemed to take place. In many ways,

postcolonial claims, including the modality of colonial relations, the “slow and late” scale

of Hellenization, and the active participation of indigenous groups, made definitive

headway, even into the more traditional discourse of western Mediterranean studies.

Adamesteanu, reinterpreting the literary record, noted that the scholarship of his time

emphasized how contact varied among different groups rather than totalizing them into a

single model.239 Similarly, Manni critiqued arguments like those of Finley’s, which

presumed that the Athenian expedition was a conflict of “Greeks” (including Western

Greeks) against “natives;” Manni, in contrast, posited the hostilities as being between

particular city-states or groups of people (for example, the conflict between native

Segesta and Greek Selinunte).240 Despite such progress, a countercurrent of

Hellenocentric scholarship still ran strong. It almost seems that as postcolonial theory

became more pervasive, the Hellenization scholarship began to fall on more sharply

divided ends of the spectrum. In addition, the intensive debate over Mycenaeans in the

western Mediterranean, and particularly the issue of the continuity of Greek presence

from the Bronze Age up through the Archaic period, had actually generated a new angle

to the Hellenocentric approach. For the first time, we see a push in the historiography to

say not only that Greek religion affected the native populations but also that indigenous

and Greek religion both originated from Mycenaean cults.241

The rift in Hellenization scholarship that has come to characterize most

assessments of the historiography is one that, I think, developed primarily in the 1980s. I

95

238 Prosdocimi 1971: 716-22.239 Adamesteanu 1976.240 Manni 1976: 182 contra Finley 1968: 45, 63-64.241 Cf. Pugliese-Carratelli 1962; 1996.

see three primary reasons for this. First, in spite of Py’s 1968 dissection of the concept,

“Hellenization” had remained a nebulous term, so much so that in 1983, Morel proposed

to throw it out altogether; slightly later, the ambiguity and inaptness of the term

“colonization” became a similar axe to be ground.242 The postcolonial and “traditional”

explanations had become more rigidly established in their respective camps, but both

suffered similar terminological and methodological maladies. The result, of course, was

that the meaning of “Hellenization” remained equivocal. Symptomatic of this problem

were several publications that underlined the need for criteria in distinguishing “Greek”

sites from “hellenized indigenous” sites in both Sicily and southern Italy and yet, the

difficulty in actually establishing said criteria.243

Second, the dichotomy within the scholarship also developed as a result of the

exaggeration of the English-language scholarship and its influence on the rest of western

Mediterranean studies. As postcolonial practitioners fashioned themselves in the 1980s

and 1990s as reactionaries to a more “traditional” discourse, they failed to identify

exactly where and how that discourse had been so dominant. An examination of the

publications of that time, however, reveals a focus on primarily two scholars: T.J.

Dunbabin and John Boardman. These scholars were certainly influential, particularly

among their students at Oxford and Cambridge. Graham, for example, claimed that

Dunbabin’s “historical interpretation still dominates scholars in the field.”244 As I have

shown in this chapter, however, Dunbabin’s and Boardman’s arguments, and particularly

their treatments of indigenous populations and indigenous religion, did not constitute a

hegemonic discourse, particularly outside of their immediate audiences. Presenting the

historiography as such, though, not only uses the exceptional to build a general model,

but also does much of the early scholarship a major disservice. In glossing over the

aspects of authorial context other than the “experience of imperialism,” scholars have

distorted the scholarship to reflect a nearly exclusive anglophone academic history.

96

242 Cf. Osborne 1999.243 Cf. Gabba and Vallet (eds) 1980.244 Graham 1982: 163.

Third, an authentic shift does seem to have occurred in the 1980s and 1990s

towards a more articulated interest in colonizer-colonial relationships, a focus that did in

fact differ from the scholarship that immediately preceded it. In 1984 Morel noted that,

“some subjects of research [on Greek colonization] have become or are becoming less

important,” including the role of the Mycenaeans in the West, colonial foundation dates,

agrarian versus commercial motives for colonization, colony to mother-city relations, and

western Greek political histories.245 In many ways, the change may be indicative of some

of the broader transformations between ancient history and the social sciences.246 Even

so, however, the general tone of the literature (in both English and other languages)

seems to divulge more substantive changes. The shift was more pronounced in the

introduction to Greek Colonists and Native Populations, a collection of papers from the

first Australian congress on classical archaeology. Descœudres wrote that the explicit aim

of the conference was to discuss “the relations between colonizers and colonized.”247

Although many papers still neglected the local, indigenous context, the fact that the

colonizer-colonial relationship was not taken for granted “represents an indisputable

change in perspective.”248 This point was certainly correct to some degree, but

unfortunately it also indicates a broader and unconstructive pattern in the most

contemporary research.

Conclusion

Recent assessments tend to characterize the Hellenization historiography in black

and white terms, seeing current research as a reaction against outdated models, which

putatively construed Hellenization as a unidirectional transfer of a superior Greek culture

to subordinate and passive native populations.249 Such reactions have largely targeted the

late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship, which associated colonization

very broadly with concepts of civilization, and posited ancient colonization as the

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245 Morel 1984: 123.246 Giddens 1979: 230; Geertz 1983: 24-35; Morris 2000: 3-6.247 Descœudres (ed) 1990: 3.248 Van Dommelen 1998: 20.249 Van Dommelen 1998; De Angelis 2000; Gosden 2004; Hodos 2006; Dietler 2005.

evolutionary precedent of more modern colonialism In the early scholarship, the

argument was often cast as a duel between civilization and barbarism and indigenous

groups were seen as primitive. Natives were also contrasted with Greeks, who were

assumed to be culturally superior, and were integrated into an evolutionary model in

which natives passively assimilated to the dominant colonial culture. More recent studies

have effectively challenged and shattered many of the older notions of Hellenization,

calling attention to subcultures of resistance, local invention, hybridization, and cultural

continuity. This attention to indigenous groups has been a long time coming, especially

among Anglophone historical treatments, but much of the research still fits “colonizers”

and “colonized”intodualist models in which they make up monolithic, homogenous

communities that exist without internal conflict and remain stable, independent groups

over time.250

Modern scholarship’s reluctance, however, to differentiate the historiography’s

treatment of different categories of evidence and types of cultural change has resulted in

an overly simplistic picture of both the scholarly tradition and the actual evidence.

Indigenous populations, and interest in them, have a very long standing in studies of the

western Mediterranean and in studies of Greece itself, developing from the sixteenth

century onwards. While many formulations of native groups were shaped within the

underlying episteme of Hellenism and imperialism, assuming that the influence of

Hellenism or the experience of imperialism equals a lack of interest in the indigenous role

would be overly deterministic. Religion and religious change have particularly

complicated positions in the Hellenization historiography. Dunbabin and Boardman, two

of the most paradigmatic and most commonly cited proponents of Hellenization theory,

both allowed for more interchange between Greeks and indigenous groups in the sphere

of religion. Some less conservative interpretations, moreover, have argued that religion

remained a bastion of indigenous tradition up into the Roman period; De Angelis’ recent

argument that religion was one of the major areas of hybridization between indigenous

customs and Greek culture echoes not just the sentiments of excavators like Martorana,

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250 As argued in Van Dommelen 1998: 22-3; Stoler 1989.

Lévêque, and De Miro from nearly half a century earlier, but also those of Freeman,

Holm, Lenormant, and Pietraganzili from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries.251

The concept that indigenous religion is continuous and unchanging is, of course,

not entirely innocent. There seems to be, in fact, a rather compelling correlation between

interpretations of ancient religious practice and changing preconceptions about

primitivism and the origins of religion. Beginning in the Renaissance, some humanists

asserted that all religions shared some commonality and that salvation was dependent

upon knowledge of that shared milieu. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, New

World discoveries “opened new horizons for a knowledge of religious man.”252 In his

brief survey about the history of religious studies, Eliade explained how educated

Europeans enjoyed a continuous stream of stories about native religious practice brought

back from the travelogues of explorers and letters from missionaries in the Americas and

China.253 Direct comparisons between the religious practices of the New World and those

of antiquity were made by the missionary J.F. Lafitau in his Customs of the American

Savages compared to the Customs of the Earliest Ages (1724).

During the Enlightenment, exotic and primordial religion belonged primarily to a

narrower field of scholarship (e.g., Fontenelle 1724; Dupuis 1794), although scholars like

Hume, Rousseau, Diderot, Wolf and Lessing also discussed the concept of natural

religion. In addition to their concentration on the origins of mythology and cult practice,

these scholars were also intrigued by ancient Greek religion. Slightly later, Creuzer

(1810-12) drew lines between Greek and non-Greek religious practices and symbolism

and strove to distinguish the effects that orientalism had exerted on Greek religion. By the

mid-nineteenth-century, the history of religions and comparative religion was an

independent discipline, although it was still highly influenced by the developments in

Eastern studies, linguistics, and philology.254 Naturalism, the role of the numen, and

demotic religion were especially favorite subjects.255As Richard Jenkyns has described,

99

251 De Angelis 2003a.252 Eliade 1959: 227.253 Ibid.: 228.254 Ibid.: 229.255 E.g. Müller 1856; Mannhardt 1875-77.

primitivism was the en vogue study: “An admiration for primitive art and society is a

familiar element of later eighteenth-century taste. Rousseau praised the noble savage;

Horace Walpole revived pointed architecture, which the renaissance had abusively called

‘gothic.’ Homer suited the taste for ‘primitive’ poetry; the reader who turned wearily

from the Augustan perfection of Virgil looked inevitably to Homer’s grand original.”256

This fascination with various aspects of early religion anticipated the wildly

popular publication of Edward Tylor’s 1871 text, Primitive Culture. By focusing on

animism as the guiding religious principle for “primitive man,” Tylor created a new way

for classical scholars to think about the religion of non-Greek populations. According to

Tylor’s theory of animism, early man believed that everything had a soul. This belief was

universal and unchanging, as long as the population remained “uncivilized” and unaware

of the ideals of rationalism.

Being aware of the ideologies and developments in religious studies is crucial, I

think, to understanding the ways scholars were looking at indigenous religion in the

western Mediterranean and for examining the archaeological record. I have shown in this

chapter that much of the early scholarship shows a strong interest in indigenous culture,

most prominently in discussions of religion. Modern scholars, who have concentrated

their efforts on systematizing the “traditional” Hellenization model, have overlooked this

feature and in their very just desire to rectify older Eurocentric Hellenization arguments,

have neglected two complicating elements of the historiography: first, that the early

scholarship allowed, and often actively promoted, the idea that religion remained a

thriving part of traditional indigenous culture in the era after colonization. And second,

that the early scholarship was able to make this argument because it also believed in the

continuity and unchanging nature of indigenous religion, a mentality that was most likely

influenced by concurrent notions of “primitivism.” Recent research has ignored these

discrepancies in the historiographical treatments and, at least in the case of religion, has

consequently created a straw man debate between “Hellenization” and postcolonial

theory.

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256 Jenkyns 1980: 14.

In short, both the early and the recent scholarship has misinterpreted the evidence

for religious changes in the western Mediterranean, but for very different reasons. At the

beginning of this chapter, I alluded to Morris’ claim that the point of historiography was

to see what others have tried to do and to show why maybe we should not try to do the

same things any more. The collective scholarly focus on deconstructing inadequate or

imperialist paradigms, I argue, led scholars to make several serious errors in reading the

archaeological record for indigenous religious developments in the Archaic and Classical

periods. The focus on larger theories has meant that religious change is subsumed under

a general model of cultural change, meaning that the evidence that supports a more

“postcolonial” model (or, better, does not support a simple Hellenization model) is

privileged in the end interpretation. The selective reading of evidence that fits notions of

“indigenous resistance” or “hybridization” is thus done at the expense of evidence that

would fit a more “hellenizing” description. The result is that the “debate” between

Hellenization and postcolonial theories takes place across two bodies of evidence that do

not communicate and the questions being ask continue to stalemate in terms of which

“model” fits the evidence better.

I argue that we instead need to be judging the evidence for religious change on its

own terms. In the following chapters, I do this by applying the set of general criteria laid

out in Chapter 1 as a means of identifying religious behavior and patterns of religious

change among both indigenous and colonial sites in Sicily and Sardinia. After 700 BCE,

religious activity among the indigenous populations of the two islands diverged

dramatically from what had existed up through the Iron Age. From one perspective,

whether the changes conform more to a “hellenizing” or a “postcolonial” model is almost

beside the point. Instead we should be asking why we have evidence for both types of

cultural response, and why, as we shall see, the two regions followed such different

trajectories in the type and scale of religious development their indigenous and colonial

populations undertook. In the next two chapters, I discuss the indigenous religious

developments in these two areas in depth and try to form a better interpretation of why

indigenous societies responded to colonial religion and colonization in the ways that they

did.

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Chapter 3

The Development of Indigenous Sicilian Religion: pre-700 BCE to 400 BCE

Introduction

How did indigenous Sicilian society respond to Greek and Phoenician colonial

religion? Answering this question largely depends on how well one demonstrates three

things: 1) that changes did, in fact, occur within indigenous religion; 2) that these changes

diverged from earlier forms of religious expression; and 3) that they can be interpreted as

responses to new, colonial religious practices. Nothing would seem to do these things

better than a close diachronic study of religion in one area, yet only recently have

scholars been interested in directly testing theories of colonial influence against the

evidence from indigenous sites. In addition, there has yet to be a study that also directly

compares the developments of the colonized region to that of the colonizers’ homeland in

order to show that the changes are in fact in the direction of the colonizers’ practices. In

regards to testing the model of Hellenization, a final comparison is needed between the

target area and one or more areas where Greek colonizers did not settle in order to

determine how dependent religious change among indigenous societies was on the

presence of Greek colonies.

The main goals of this chapter are to answer the first two challenges posed above:

to show that changes occurred and that they were divergences from the earlier period. For

these purposes, it is useful to divide the material into two main sections, using the first to

establish the setting of indigenous religious practice in Sicily prior to 650 BCE, and the

second to describe developments that occurred between 650 and 400 BCE. This breadth

of time is broken down further into half centuries in order to examine the developments

at a more refined scale.

For the sake of scope, the analysis in this chapter is limited to a rigorous case

study of central-western Sicily. I chose this region for its position between Greek and

Phoenician colonies (primarily Selinous, Himera, Motya, and Panormus) and for its

occupation history-- local groups inhabited the area both before and after the colonizing

102

activities of the eighth century BCE. The area includes over 50 indigenous sites, which

together form a regionally diverse data set. In addition, excavation of these sites has been

a rather recent phenomenon, having taken off only since the late 1950s when Vincenzo

Tusa started to dig at Segesta. Because many of the excavations are so recent, they have

been more apt to implement new archaeological methods such as faunal study,

archeobotanical research, and geomorphology. These new methods have in turn revealed

data that pertain to a broader range of religious practices. The number of sites, their

publication, and their methods are not small matters-- in order to make a statistically

significant study, the data have to surpass a quantitative threshold. This area provides

such a quantity, even if it is sometimes only in aggregate form. For these reasons, western

Sicily offers a good place for investigating indigenous religious developments over time

and for testing Hellenization and postcolonial models against the evidence.

The indigenous setting prior to 650 BCE

To only study the religious practices of indigenous groups after the arrival of

Greeks and Phoenicians would misrepresent the significance and the complexity of the

changes that did occur. Social scientists would call this “selecting on the dependent

variable”—that is, attempting to explain the phenomenon in question solely by looking at

examples of the phenomenon, rather than by comparing it with other things. It would

also revert the work of postcolonial scholars and their pleas that indigenous history

should be studied in its own right back forty years. Finally, and most practically, in order

to understand how religious worship in Sicily changed after the arrival of Greeks and

Phoenicians, we must first know what preceded it.

The world of native central-western Sicily was a mosaic of different ethnic and

social groups long before Greeks and Phoenicians ever settled on its outskirts. The

literary tradition stipulates that western Sicily was divided between two Sicilian tribes by

the late eighth century BCE; the eastern half was occupied by Sikans while the Elymians

lived in the western half.257 Franco De Angelis provides an accessible account of the

103

257 Thuc. VI.2: 5; see also Diod. V. 6: 2-3.

scholarly discussion over the distinctions between these two groups, noting in particular

the unsound methodologies and hypotheses in place.258 Thucydidean labels are

particularly problematic for the pre-650 BCE material in western Sicily. Sites that would

later become the strongholds of “Elymian” Sicily—Eryx, Entella, Halikyai, Segesta—

have so far revealed surprisingly little Iron Age material, making it difficult to confidently

attribute any generalizing ethnic label to them. The medieval town at Erice largely

destroyed or buried the ancient layers, and centuries of occupation at Entella had similar

results. The identity of Halikyai is still uncertain, but even if it were shown to be at

Salemi, the medieval deposits there would have probably destroyed most of the early

levels.259 Likewise at Segesta, Monte Barbaro was probably the main settlement, but Iron

Age levels remain either buried under over three meters of erosion and fill or were

destroyed by later activity.260 The evidence that is available suggests that the first

substantial occupation of the site did not occur until the sixth century BCE. The only

eighth-century material from Segesta and its adjacent territory, in fact, comes from the

later sacred area of Grotta Vanella and no count was given for the Iron Age fragments

found there.

The tendency to discuss native Sicilians in terms of their Thucydidean ethnic

labels is an enduring one and, as De Angelis demonstrates, is still practiced out of

convention more than anything else.261 However, the implication that these two groups

are somehow inherently different from each other or, alternatively, are internally

consistent is somewhat misleading.262 In the following pages, I avoid using the

Thucydidean labels as much as possible since I am discussing stages of these sites that

pre-date the colonial foundations, Thucydides’ literary composition, and other “ethnic

104

258 De Angelis 2003b: 102-103.259 Northern Illinois University’s excavations since 2001 in Salemi have found medieval deposits down to bedrock in most trenches. Only in one case did a substantial fourth-century BC level survive, with residual traces of sixth- or fifth-century activity (Kolb 2004).260 Bernardini et al. 2000.261 De Angelis 2003b: 103.262 Indigenous sites in Sicily are also often described in terms of the distribution of particular material cultures, the Sant’Angelo Muxaro-Polizzello, Finocchito, and Cassibile styles being the most characteristic (Leighton 1999: 238-61; Albanese Procelli 2003). The “Sant’Angelo Muxaro-Polizzello” facies takes its name from two major indigenous sites in the central interior of Sicily during the late Iron Age and early Archaic periods. The “Finochitto” and “Cassibile” styles have slightly earlier starting dates and are traditionally associated with eastern Sicily.

identifying” evidence such as the Elymian written language by a substantial measure. The

map below indicates the location of sites mentioned in the text; areas with evidence of

sacred activity concentrated around graves are identified with cross marks, while sites

with non-funerary sacred areas are distinguished by points.

+1+2

+•3+5

+•7

+ 8

+ 9

+ 6

+10

+11+12+13

+14+•15

+16

+17+18+19

+20

+21

+23+22

+ 25+27

+24

+ 26

•29

+28•30

Figure 3-1. Map of Iron Age Sicily, with sites mentioned in the text numbered. 1. Monte Dessueri. 2. Monte Bubbonia. 3. Sabucina. 4. Vassalaggi. 5. Caltanissetta. 6. Mussomeli. 7. Palma di Montechiaro. 8. Caltafaraci. 9. Monte Saraceno. 10. Gibil Gabel. 11. Valle Oscura-Balate-Marianapoli. 12. Monte Raffe. 13. Polizzello. 14. Sant'Angelo Muxaro. 15. Caltabellotta. 16. Santa Margherita Belice. 17. Corleone. 18. Poggioreale. 19. Entella. 20. Eryx. 21. Segesta. 22. Mokarta. 23. Salemi-Halikyai?. 24. Monte Maranfusa. 25. Monte Iato. 26. Monte d'Oro. 27. Montagnola di Marineo. 28. Cassaro di Castronuovo. 29. Scirinda. 30. Montagnoli di Menfi

The funerary evidence

Some scholars have assumed that “burials are an obvious point of reference in

discussions of indigenous religion.”263 This assumption, however, has yet to be linked to

an empirically robust concept of religion itself nor to an explanation of how and why

105

263 Leighton 1999: 263.

indigenous religion changed over time. If burials are indeed a starting point in discussing

indigenous religion, then the evidence which they provide needs to be judged by the same

criteria that is used to identify other and later “religious” areas. The funerary evidence for

Iron Age and early Archaic central-western Sicily has come primarily from the hilltop

settlements that dot the inland landscape. Unlike the settlement sectors of these sites,

burials were less susceptible to damage from later building activity. They have, however,

often been targets for clandestine digging, either ancient or modern, an activity that has

left rather gaping holes in representations of Iron Age Sicily.

In this section, the data are organized by geographic sub-region. I begin with sites

around Gela. Officially, these sites are outside the study area of central-western Sicily. I

include them here in order to supplement the data set and for comparative purposes.

Since so many of the tombs in western Sicily remain either unpublished or devastated by

tomb robbery, it is difficult to interpret anything that even pretends to be quantitatively

significant. The sites near Gela thus shore up the numbers a bit more than would

otherwise be possible. Moreover, many of the Geloan-area sites were abandoned at the

end of the eighth century, their populations presumably dispersing to other sites in the

area, including the central interior. Thus, although the populations that inhabited these

sites were outside the study area in the Iron Age, their descendents may have very well

been inside the region by the time of the Archaic period.

a. The Geloan hinterland

The hinterland of Gela is one of the richer areas in terms of burial remains, at

least partially because of the archaeological interest in the area during the first half of the

twentieth century. Orsi’s excavations and survey at the site of Monte Dessueri in 1902

and 1903 noted 1500 burials, although only 197 were systematically excavated; many

had been damaged in antiquity.264 Later excavations by Panvini in 1992 and 1993

revealed that the site was occupied from the end of the tenth century on, although the

majority of the tombs date to the ninth and early eighth centuries BCE.265 Most of the

106

264 Orsi 1912.265 Panvini 1993-1994b: 811.

tombs consisted of a single chamber, preceded by a dromos and small vestibule. The

average burial contained one to three inhumations, but three tombs held six, seven, and

twelve bodies. In cases where skeletal remains were present, the bones had been placed in

either a fetal or supine position. Funerary benches were a common feature of the tombs

and the tomb assemblages were repetitive, particularly in the presence of jugs and

ollae.266 Nearly every tomb included at least one bronze element, but rare were the

burials with more than one to two bronze items per individual.

On the surface then, the tombs at Monte Dessueri seem rather homogenous, but if

examined in terms of the archaeological correlates of religion, a slightly different picture

emerges. Burials that deviate from the typical circular or elliptical rock-cut chamber, for

example, could correspond to the correlate that states that places of religious ritual occur

in architecturally differentiated spaces, set apart from the rest of a site. Twenty-eight

burials dispersed among the four different cemetery areas, are distinguished from the

other burials on the site through their anomalous form (i.e. larger dimensions, double

chambered, with anterooms or dromoi, or with “ritual areas” in front of the tomb

entrance). Within these 28 burials, however, only seven show evidence pertaining to one

other correlate and only four show evidence that pertains to more than one other

correlate. The low number of ‘positive’ correspondences is at least partially a function of

tomb disruption at the site. Eleven of the 28 burials were partially or severely disturbed,

sometimes lacking remains entirely; the single example of a cupola/tholos tomb (P28)

was found empty, skeletal and assemblage materials both absent. Even among the burials

that were undisturbed, however, evidence that matches the correlates in the

archaeological framework of religion is scanty. Five burials (F79, P32, C23, C32, and

C36) could be seen as displaying wealth in the assemblage, seen in the both the instances

of a worked metals—the gold ring in F79 and bronze sheeting and dagger in C23—and in

the number of objects per cadaver—5/body in P32 and C36 and 4/body in C32. Perhaps,

however, the display of wealth was not a significant factor in these practices and more

priority was given to the other correlates. Still examining those burials with differentiated

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266 Maniscalco 1986.

architecture, one of the few patterns among the assemblages is the occasional appearance

of a knife or razor among the materials, attested in 11 burials mostly in the Fastuccheria

and Canalottto-Ovest cemeteries (F16, F62, F77, F79, P32, C5, C15, C23, C31, C32,

C33). Six of these appear to have been broken prior to deposition, and thus perhaps

allude to the correlate of ritual breakage. The assemblages are also rather repetitive,

primarily featuring jugs and jars (ollae and hydriae); for the 20 more or less intact

burials, for example, jugs constitute 38.9% of the total assemblages while jars make up

15.5% (N total vessels = 129). The presence of tomb assemblages and the repetition of

certain objects indicates “ritual deposition” in a broad sense, but whether such deposition

should be labeled “votive” remains ambiguous. The few deposits, all made in the

Canalotto-Ovest necropolis, appear more “votive” in character due to their burial in pits

either outside of the tomb chamber or in the dromoi of several tombs. Panvini also

mentions bothroi in seven tombs of this same Canalotto area that contained vessels (but

made no mention of animal bones or other materials).267

In short, then, while a number of tombs at Dessueri seem to have a differentiated

architectural form that might indicate a correlation to religious practice, most such tombs

lack evidence that would pertain to the other correlates, thus making it difficult to argue

strongly for a strong association between burial architecture and early religion. In

addition, when we shift back to the burials of more typical form—that of the single

circular or elliptical chamber—we see that several of these “normal” burials reveal one or

more of the other religious indicators. These include things like “symbolic” elements,

such as deer antlers, a clay horn, hatchet-pendants, and a drill, found in five burials; a

“wealthy” assemblage found in a small tomb, as pertains to another, different burial; the

deposition and breakage of knives, in 10 burials; or what appears to be a very specialized

laying out of bodies, as is the case of the two large-deposition burials where all the heads

were placed towards the center of the tomb. Like the “architecturally-differentiated”

burials, however, none of the burials seem to account for more than one (usually) to three

(maximum) correlates.

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267 Panvini 1993-94b: 814.

To sum up, at Monte Dessueri religious or ritual sentiments certainly seem to be

at play and were perhaps in a developmental phase. Overall, they were diffuse among the

burials and, from what the evidence seems to tell us, not tied to a clearly defined

“religious system.” Moreover, they do not seem to be limited to either the “elite” families

(if we can make that distinction based on the limited evidence) or to larger clannish

gatherings. There is no consistent correspondence between number of bodies in a tomb

and an increase in the number of archaeological correlates of religion. The four burials

with “larger” numbers of bodies (from 6 to 12 bodies) are in slightly larger chambers and

contain a larger overall number of vessels, but the ratio of vessels/individual cadaver

either maintains the pattern observed in the smaller chambers or is dramatically poorer.

Monte Bubbonia is another inland indigenous site with remains from the eighth

century. Unfortunately, knowledge of the Iron Age burials remains limited. Out of 70

tombs excavated, only five (all from the southern necropolis) date to the late eighth

century.268 All of these have evidence for visitation from the later periods, but the primary

depositions seem to belong to the end of the Iron Age. The deposition of particular

objects is the most distinctive feature of these burials. The repetition of jugs within the

assemblages is remarkable: of the 64 objects that can be securely dated to the Iron Age,

exactly half are jugs; the other finds consist of metal ornaments (14) bowls (8), cups (8),

two hydriae and a cooking pot. The particular method of placing the jugs inside bowls is

also repetitive, possibly indicating the vessels’ usage in rituals of pouring, drinking, or

ablution. All of these tombs were revisited following the original deposition, but none

past the first quarter of the sixth century BCE.269

b. The Salso and lower Himera valley area

Further to the west, nearly every indigenous site in the lower Himera valley was

occupied during the prehistoric period. However, almost all of these sites experienced a

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268 Pancucci and Naro 1992: 145; Pancucci 2006.269 It should be noted that the details of the Monte Bubbonia burials are limited to only what Orsi wrote in his notebooks in 1905 and 1906; Pancucci republished some of these materials in 1972 and the remaining (with Naro) in 1992 and 2006. However, he and Naro admit that in many cases, the burials that Orsi identified could no longer be found.

hiatus in their occupation at some point between the Bronze Age and seventh century.

Sabucina is one of the better-known examples. One of the larger villages of the time, it

has a number of huts and tombs that date to the Late and Final Bronze Age (eleventh-

tenth centuries BCE). Most of the prehistoric chamber tombs were cut into the southern

slope of the rock outcrop, but almost all of these were readopted and reused during the

sixth and fifth centuries BCE, obliterating the earlier depositions. The nucleus of the hut

village lies under the sixth century settlement area. It was thought that at least two of

these huts incorporated some type of ritualized activity.270 Hypogeum 1/83—a building

whose function still eludes scholars—is the oldest excavated building at Sabucina, dating

to the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE. The excavators thought that the materials found

within it reflected some sort of cultic function-- two bowls, a stone pestle, worked bone

‘punches’, a large footed basin, and the horn of a bovid—but in terms of the correlates,

only the bovine horn and the basin seem tenable as possible religious indicators,

particularly when the form of the building is rather unremarkable.

Besides Sabucina, the amount of evidence we have for the Iron Age in this part of

Sicily is disappointingly low. Although many sites such as Gibil Gabel, Caltanissetta,

Balate-Marianopoli, Terravecchia di Cuti, Monte Saraceno, Monte Raffe, and Palma di

Montechiaro have evidence for Bronze Age settlement, almost all were abandoned at the

end of the early Bronze Age and only re-inhabited by the mid-seventh and sixth centuries

BCE. In some cases, our limited knowledge of the period is also due to later building

activity which dismantled earlier structures or to constraints on excavation, as is the case

at Caltanissetta.271 The recent surge in survey work, however, has indicated the possibility

of other Iron Age settlements, particularly in the area of modern Mussomeli (6) and in the

territory of Palma di Montechiaro (7).272 More substantial remains were found at

Caltafaraci (8) (about 5 km northeast of Agrigento) in the form of Iron Age huts and

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270 Mollo Mezzina 1993; Guzzone 2006: 39-43.271 Castellana (1981:103-104) refers to a “probably large protohistoric settlement” that overlay an early Bronze Age layer of about 0.4 m thickness; there is a similar patter of late seventh and early sixth century development at the sites further east as well (e.g. M. Lavanca Nera, M. di Marzo, M. Navone, and M. Manganello). 272 D’Agata 1992: 142; Castellana 1982: 88-89; 1993: 735-36. The presence of Sant’ Angelo Muxaro-Polizzello pottery also indicated the presence of Iron Age settlements at M. Campanella, Rocca Ficarazze, and Rocca Amorella.

Sant’Angelo-Muxaro style pottery (as well as an EBA village).273 Research further to the

west suggests a similar pattern, based on the recovery of impressed and incised wares

dating from the eighth- through the fifth-centuries BCE.274

Thus, the information specific to Iron Age burials in this area is rather superficial,

particularly in contrast to the evidence for the Bronze Age and the later Archaic period.

The necropoleis at Caltanissetta (5), Monte Saraceno (9), Gibil Gabel (10), Valle Oscura

(11) and Monte Raffe (12) have not disclosed any burials dating to the early Iron Age

(ninth century BCE).275 As far as I am aware, there are only about fifteen tombs that can

be dated to the eighth-seventh centuries and most of these were found disturbed.

Vincenzo La Rosa did identify a number of tombs at different places around Mussomeli

(6) that date from the Middle Bronze Age through the Iron Age, but almost all had been

violated and of what did remain, no analysis has been carried out to date.

c. The Platani valley and the central interior

The sites of Polizzello (13) and Sant’Angelo Muxaro (14) are the major

exceptions to the general scarcity of Iron Age material in central Sicily, particularly in

regard to burials. The settlement of Polizzello developed at the end of the ninth century

on the upper (‘acropolis’) and lower (‘il piano’) plateaus of the Montagna di Polizzello.

Although only part of the tombs have been published, certain differences can be drawn

between them, particularly in regards to how their associated remains correspond to

religious archaeological signifiers. For instance, while Polizzello hosts a variety of tomb

forms, two funerary areas—one near Tomb 5 and the other near Tomb 25—were specially

set off from the rest of the necropolis via the use of enclosure walls and other

architectural installations. While the use of delimiting walls and differential architecture

denotes a special character to these tombs, they also include other “attention-focusing”

devices. The area near Tomb 5, for example, includes a semicircular cobbled paving and

a circular structure that the excavator interpreted as an altar due to the finds of burnt

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273 Castellana 1985: 270-71.274 Spatafora 1996; see especially the distribution map on p. 160.275 For necropolis excavations of these sites, see Fiorelli 1880: 502; 1881: 250-51; Patricolo 1889: 256-58; Salinas 1894: 214-20; Adamesteanu 1958a: 390-95.

animal bones next to it. 276 Furthermore, in the area between tombs 24 and 25, a bench

was built into the rock face to focus attention on the space between the two tombs while

an elongated platform with a “sacrificial table” defined the northern side of the enclosure.

The presence of such structures and burnt animal bones seem to confirm the practice of

animal sacrifice in these areas. In addition, the animals also seem to have been consumed

within these contexts, as inferred from a pit containing vessels and bovine jaws and a

trench full of animal bones near Tomb 5 and of scattered bones and carbonized remains

inside a “reunion room” directly to the north of Tomb 25.277 Graziella Fiorentini has

connected this material with the early Bronze Age burials found nearby at the Valle

Oscura necropolis (Balate-Marianopoli, 11), arguing that the custom of animal sacrifice

at funerary banquets perhaps derived from prehistoric ancestral rites. Animal sacrifice

around tombs was certainly not unknown to the Bronze Age communities of Sicily;

tombs at Milena, Cannatello--both near Agrigento-- and in the vicinity of Favara (near

Caltafaraci, no. 8) seem to also have evidence for sacrifice practiced outside certain

tombs.278 However, while there does seem to be a significant concern with a past

(specified or not) at Polizzello—at least five tombs show a prolonged usage over time

with distinct layers of deposition—the near thousand years between the practices at Valle

Oscura and the practices at Polizzello strongly suggest that it was a more recent and

independent phenomenon.

The materials recovered from these two tomb areas correspond to a number of

other religious correlates as well. Tombs 5 and 25 both were reopened and used for burial

again and again over the course of two centuries, attesting to the continued use of a

specific place for burial and associated rituals. In regards to the funerary assemblages and

their “display of wealth,” tombs 5 and 25 diverge from the pattern observed in other

Polizzello tombs, but not nearly as much as one might expect from tombs that projected a

number of other types of ritual expression. The average mid-eighth to seventh-century

burial at Polizzello, for example, held two to three bodies and contained an assemblage

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276 De Miro 1988: 35; Fiorentini 1999: 188.277 Fiorentini 1999: 190.278 For Milena, Tomasello 1997. For Cannatello, Mosso 1907: 650; S. Tusa 1983: 490-92. For Favara, Castellana 1988-89: 531-32.

consisting of anywhere from three to six objects per individual. Oinochoai, small

amphorae, and cups or chalices were the most common items to be left in the tombs,

along with fibulae and razors. The “wealth” of tombs 5 and 25 can only be interpreted in

a rough form since no data has been provided as to the number of bodies that date to each

stratified layer within the tombs. If we conjecture, however, that the early layers

conformed to at least the body counts observed in other tombs—that is, of at least two to

three inhumations—then we may have a bare minimum for gauging the number of

vessels and number of “luxury” items per individual. 279 In Layer 3 (early seventh c.

BCE) of Tomb 5, there were 19 oinochoai, 1 askos, 3 pyxides, 3 amphorae, 2 pedestal

vessels, 11 bowls, 1 iron utensil, several undiagnostic iron fragments, 1 bronze spiral, and

4 fibulae, equaling 19.5 vessels and 3-4 metal objects/person for two individuals or 13

vessels and 2 metal objects/person for three. Based on the presence of four fibulae, it

seems more likely that there were a minimum of four bodies associated with this layer,

thus lowering the MNI objects/body to 9.75 vessels and 1.25 metal objects. Deploying a

similar methodology, Tomb 25 shows a slightly “wealthier” index, yet only for its

earliest, eighth century level.280 Layer 4 (650 BCE) includes just three vessels for the

entire level; Layer 4-5 (700-675 BCE) has another three, albeit more luxurious, objects—

a bone bead necklace, a bone pendant, and a small bronze knife. Layer 5 (eighth-seventh

century BCE) includes 15 vessels, at least 24 ornaments (mostly of fibulae, beads, and

bone plaques) and two knives. Although obviously richer than other burials known at

Polizzello, the wealth does not seem overwhelming, particularly when broken down on a

per person level.

Tombs 5 and 25 also seem to have a slightly greater claim to a symbolic element,

particularly by the seventh century. The eighth-century remains of Tomb 25, for example,

included the skull of an animal, alluding to either animal sacrifice or the propitious power

of animal skulls being part of the burial and ritual context. At tomb 5, moreover, two hut-

models were deposited along with three amphorae, three drinking chalices, and a footed

plate, inside the enclosure area at some point during the seventh century, once again

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279 Palermo 1981: 114; Fiorentini 1999: 187.280 De Miro 1988: 35, 38.

marking this area as a place of both symbolic dedication and of ritual consumption and or

drinking.

Examining the features of tomb areas 5 and 25 in terms of the archaeological

correlates of religion reveals more clearly that these places do seem to have been places

of centralized ritual activity as early as the eighth century BCE. While they certainly

attracted significant and repetitive ritual attention, however, it should be noted that a

number of other burials at Polizzello also integrated elements that correspond to certain

correlates as well. In terms of architecture, for example, Tombs 1 and 8, are less

“monumental,” but include the distinguishing feature of antechambers. Another example,

such as the late seventh-century Tomb 9, has a depository bench (an “attention-focusing

device”) and broken razors and knives, a ritual act seen in at least two other tombs (3 and

8) as well. The assemblages of all of the tombs also seem to resemble those of tombs 5

and 25, primarily consisting of table and drinking wares. Burials 9 and 1 also show signs

that they were reopened at least twice, perhaps indicating a general tendency at Polizzello

towards tomb reuse and ritual visitation. Thus, although tombs 5 and 25 do seem to be

more focalized in terms of ritual activity, they were also not exclusive.

From the eighth up to the early sixth century BCE, the continuation of rituals,

particularly that of animal sacrifice, secured these tombs as centers of “religion” for some

proportion of the Polizzello community. As intense as the activity seems to have been in

this part of Polizzello, however, by the end of the seventh century BCE, sacrifices carried

out in the area start to drop off, as evidenced from the decrease in the number of bones

found with late-seventh and sixth-century vessels. Moreover, although there was a long

tradition of use, votive dedication, and multiple burials at certain tombs during the Iron

Age and early Archaic period, by 575-550 BCE, these too had halted. The tombs that had

once been so clearly a focal point for ritual were merely tombs, with hardly any evidence

for visitation past the first quarter of the sixth century BCE.

Sant’Angelo Muxaro (14) is another well-documented site for central Sicily in the

Iron Age. Located about 20 km north of Agrigento, it is also a hilltop settlement with an

assortment of tombs from various periods cut into the hillside. The burials fall into two

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chronological and geographical groups. The earliest tombs (tombs 7-19), dating to the

early Iron Age (primarily ninth century BCE), were made at the bottom of the south side

of the hill and were significantly smaller than those of the other group. The other tombs,

located slightly further up the hill, date roughly between the eighth and sixth centuries

BCE and include the gigantic “Grotta di Sant’Angelo” as well as several other large

tombs (which measure up to 4.6 m. in diameter and 3 m. high). The intact tombs were

found with masses of human bones on the floor, the result of periodic re-openings of the

tomb and deposition of more bodies. Orsi counted 36 bodies in one chamber, while more

recent excavations identified another with at least 45 individuals.

Robert Leighton has shown that although the pottery cannot be assigned to

specific individuals, the recurrence of certain vessel shapes (36 jugs and 23 plate stands

in Tomb 4, for example) seems to signify a selection of grave goods, perhaps with only

one to two vessels and few personal ornaments (such as a fibula) per person.281 The

presence of an internal funerary "bed" and the occasional differentiation in the grave

goods of some individuals, however, also indicate that certain tombs and certain

individuals were granted special treatment. In Tomb 6, for example, two individuals lay

on an elevated funerary bed, whose headrest supported the skull of one; this skeleton also

still wore an engraved gold ring. Orsi suggested that this was perhaps the original couple

of a clan, whose descendants were later buried en masse on the floor of the chamber. At

least four other tombs held “large” depositions (i.e. containing six or more bodies), which

perhaps indicates a continuation of Bronze Age collective burial practices.

Viewed from the perspective of archaeological correlates, these tombs of larger

multiple deposition and differentiated architecture do seem to stand out against the

background of burials in central-western Sicily overall. The fact that certain tombs

contained precious metals (Tomb 6, but also others whose finds, such as gold bowls, have

since been lost) and involved rather grandiose construction techniques (i.e. the Grotta di

Sant’Angelo) links them to the correlate of a display of wealth. Certain finds could be

also construed as “symbolic” and the assemblages, although from stratified contexts,

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281 Leighton 1999: 257-58.

relate primarily to drinking vessels. The problem with drawing any larger conclusions

about Sant’Angelo Muxaro, however, is that we lack any broader comparative framework

for the few tombs that have been published. The modern city of Sant’Angelo Muxaro

may very well overlay the ancient city center, making it difficult to know how the

cemetery corresponds to the settlement and thus, how burial ritual is (or is not) tied to any

broader religious developments within the community. The lack of stratified deposits

within the tombs makes even simple things, such as the dates of the material, difficult,

and more complicated interpretations, such as changes in burial or ritual practice even

more so. In short, while it seems highly likely that the Sant’Angelo Muxaro tombs

involved some level or ritual activity, there is not enough good information to make

qualified statements about overall religious development and change at the site.

Further to the west are a number of sites that, like many of their counterparts in

central Sicily, were inhabited by the Early Bronze Age, many with signs of occupation

during the eighth century. At Caltabellotta (15), about 30 km to the west of Sant’Angelo

Muxaro, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a large hut village of the terraces of

Monte Gulea along with many rectangular-cut artificial grotto tombs, most of which had

been violated.282 Eighth-century BCE burials also dot the hills around Santa Margherita

Belice (16), near Selinus. The majority of information about these burials comes from 15

Iron Age tombs, excavated by Gabrici in 1919 and now known only from his field

notebooks. The notes identify a series of cremations found in small trenches, each of

which still had at least one object deposited with it. Four tombs were found with either

blades or lance points, three of which were broken in half. Three other tombs revealed

metal ornaments, such as a bronze hair spiral or small rings. Not all of the vessel

assemblages were enumerated with specific vessel types, but every burial included at

least one vessel, mostly of bowls, cups, jugs, or ollae. In 1930, Pirro Marconi excavated

another six tombs in the area and noted a “notable uniformity” among the tomb

dedications; the assemblages consisted primarily of olla jars, dippers, bowls, and the odd

fibula.283 Drawing any grand conclusions from this limited package would be rather

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282 Panvini 1993-94a: 759-62.283 Marconi 1930: 400-401.

specious, but the data does seem to indicate that liquid-pouring vessels, the breakage of

knives, and the deposition of ornamental objects were commonly recognized rituals in

this area up through the late Iron Age.

d. The Belice valley

The territory of the more western parts of Sicily is particularly shadowy for the

Iron Age and early Archaic periods. Several seasons of survey and excavation were

carried out near Corleone (17) along the lower Belice valley which identified 30 sites

ranging from the prehistoric to the medieval period, but the EIA material is still rather

sparse. In her report, Francesca Spatafora maintained that Iron Age material may come to

light yet, but that at this time, “it is not possible to establish with certainty the pre-

existence of the sites in respect to the period in which among the same centers Greek

culture was asserted with vigor through the capillary penetration of the colonies of the

southern coast of the island...”.284 Nearby, the site of Poggioreale (18) has offered

tantalizing information for both the Middle Bronze Age and the sixth-century phase, but

nothing yet for the eighth century BCE. Systematic excavations began there in 1967 and

involved a series of trenches in both the settlement and in the necropolis. Unfortunately,

this work remains unpublished, aside from a brief note.285 The later work of Gioacchino

Falsone and Albert Leonard in the necropolis concluded that the majority of the tombs

dated to the sixth and fifth century, but there may be some that were slightly earlier.286

Excavations at Entella (19) have also contributed information on Iron Age burials,

though again the majority of tombs found were disturbed. Necropolis A revealed a few

remains from the Iron Age as well as two rock cut tombs of the seventh century BCE.

Tomb 1 was a rectangular rock-cut trench grave that was attached to an artificial

grotticella. The excavators identified a stratigraphic sequence of three layers related to the

tomb. Layer 2 was the richest and consisted of a clayish soil with numerous fragments of

Archaic local pottery and two fragments of Corinthian-imitation vessels. It also contained

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284 Spatafora 1997: 1277.285 V. Tusa 1972.286 Falsone and Leonard 1979: 74-78.

a number of animal bones, including knuckle-bones and the jaw of a cow. The jaw lay on

a stone in the southeast corner of the trench, slightly above the level of the rock.287 Two

other medium-sized stones, a grindstone fragment, and pieces of cooking pots were also

found near the east side of the burial. The lowest level was in direct contact with the

bedrock. It held very little pottery, but did produce part of a small, incised jug, crushed

onto the rock, a clay spindlewhorl, and a stone tool. No burial was found, however, thus

rendering its funerary designation uncertain. According to the excavators, it would be

strange for the context to not relate to a tomb, based on its form.288 However, the strong

presence of pottery is problematic, and mostly recalls the occupation levels of some

houses, even though the narrowness of the space would seem to rule out any domestic

function. Instead, they suggested, the presence of clearly intact vessels and what looks

like their intentional breakage along with the animal bones most closely resembles ritual

or funerary ceremonies—banqueting, libations, and drinking.289 Similar activities could

have also marked Tomb 2 (less than a meter away from Tomb 1), found inside a natural

fracture in the rock-face. The burial itself was made inside a funerary amphora, except for

the decapitated (post-mortem) skull that had been placed outside the amphora. The

associated ceramic remains closely resemble those of Tomb 1 and the faunal remains of

sheep/goats and deer were also present.290

e. Western and northwestern Sicily

The sites that would later become the massive strongholds of western indigenous

Sicily—Eryx (20) and Segesta (21)—have so far revealed surprisingly little evidence for

the eighth century BCE. The archaic necropolis at Segesta was discovered in the 1920s,

but has since been totally destroyed. The only eighth-century material from Segesta and

the nearby territory, in fact, comes from the later sacred area of Grotta Vanella and no

count was given for the eighth-century fragments found there. The site of Mokarta (22)

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287 Nenci (ed.) 1993: 158-59.288 Ibid: 162.289 Ibid: 168.290 Ibid: 193-94.

(near Salemi (23)) is better documented, although the site primarily dates to the Late and

Final Bronze Ages. The necropolis consists of small, cut grotto tombs with a circular or

elliptical plan. The tombs held from one to six inhumations as well as vessel

assemblages, a few bronze objects, and the occasional luxury item. Vessels, particularly

of liquid-related tablewares, were found in the dromos of some tombs and seem to testify

to rites or ceremonies being held post-deposition.291 Monte Maranfusa (24), which dates

from the eighth to the fourth century BCE, also offers promising potential for study. Most

of the work has concentrated on two portions of the domestic settlement in the southwest

part of plateau but survey work indicates that the settlement was quite extensive. No

information concerning related necropoleis has been reported yet, however.292 Nearby,

Monte Iato (25) also was the site of an eighth century protohistoric settlement, as known

from pottery scatters and the excavation of at least one hut. Later Archaic, Classical, and

Hellenistic activity, however, has obscured the Iron Age structures almost entirely and the

necropoleis remain unexcavated.293

In the northwest part of Sicily, the picture is more of the same. The necropolis

around Monte d’Oro (26) has a large number of tombs in use from the mid-sixth century

up to the end of the fifth century BCE, but only one tomb with a local bowl and oinochoe

that dates to the late seventh century.294 The recent surveys by Di Stefano and Vassallo

have dramatically changed the assumption that the hinterland of Himera was basically

unoccupied at the time of Himera’s settlement. Vassallo identified over 38 sites in the

territory inland from Himera and Palermo that date at least as far back as the early sixth

century.295 Evidence is increasingly starting to come out of sites now under excavation,

particularly those of Montagnola di Marineo (27) and Cassaro di Castronuovo (28), but it

is really too soon to tell anything definitive about their chronologies at this point.

The picture we have of Iron Age religion as manifested through burials and funerary

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291 S. Tusa 1980: 809-53; Albanese Procelli 2003: 61.292 Spatafora 1988-89: 711-13.293 Isler 1991; 1996: 1-3.294 Di Stefano 1978: 30-31.295 Vassallo 1996: 204-22; 1999: 15-22; Di Stefano 1990.

practices is far from complete. There is little hope that the material will ever provide

something entirely conclusive, particularly given the patchy nature of the evidence.

However, from what we do have, I would argue that some tentative generalizations can

still be made, particularly if this set of evidence is analyzed collectively and placed

against the typological framework of religion or religious practice. Before doing this,

however, the non-funerary evidence that dates to this period must also be presented.

The non-funerary evidence

In describing approaches to “the sacred sphere” for the Iron Age/protohistoric

period, Rosa Maria Albanese Procelli has noted that “it is not easy to identify...the

distinguishing line between sacred and domestic buildings, or between public and private

buildings, not only because the data at our disposition are few, but probably also because

the categories of profane and sacred are not altogether effectively autonomous.”296

Alexander Mazarakis Ainian made this distinction in regard to Iron Age structures in

Greece, arguing in particular for the interaction between “rulers’ dwellings” and cult

buildings, and the close relationship between early, possibly religious centers and their

domestic context is equally apt for the case of Sicily.297 The nebulous nature of the

existing structures thus makes interpretations of the already limited material even more

difficult.

The area around Agrigento and Palma di Montechiaro (7) seems to have had some

of the earliest notions of ritual or religious space, even by the Early Bronze Age.298 The

Early Bronze Age structures went out of use at some point during the transitional period

between the Middle and Late Bronze Age, but by the Final Bronze Age (tenth to ninth

century BCE), a “cultic hut” seems to have again been erected near Palma di

Montechiaro.299 The hut was characterized by a terracotta basin laid into its floor, with

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296 Albanese Procelli 2006: 45. Trans. “non è facile individuare per il periodo protostorico la linea di demarcazione tra edifici sacre e domestici (così come tra quelli pubblici e privati), non solo perché i dati a disposizione sono pochi, ma probabilmente anche perché le categorie del profano e del sacro non sono effettivamente del tutto autonome.”297 Mazarakis Ainian 1997: 369, 379; see also Adamesteanu 1955 for Sicily more particularly.298 In particular, the EBA ‘sanctuaries’ at Cannatello, Madre Chiesa, Monte Grande, and Piano Vento. 299 Castellana 1983: 121.

bits of plaster around it. Very close to the basin were the remains of marine ‘patelle’ and

unburnt sheep and ox bones, which the excavators interpreted as evidence of sacrifice.

Also present were pebbles, a small votive axe, and six large, stone loomweights.

Certain buildings at Sabucina (3) may also have had ritual functions. Hypogeum

1/83 (as discussed above) has variously been described as either a tomb structure

readapted for cultic purposes or an attachment to hut 16 that might have been used for

domestic labor. In either case, delineating a specifically and strictly sacred purpose is

next to impossible. Equally problematic is the cultic designation assigned to rectangular

building D, built in the eighth century and in use up to the middle of the sixth century

BCE. A low bench with two circular depressions ran along the inside wall of the building.

One of these depressions contained a basin that may have been ritually used, but which

remains unclear in how it would have related to the lack of materials in the rest of the

building.300 Hut 9 is another puzzle; in addition to a rather typical domestic assemblage

of cooking pots, bowls, and a dolium, archaeologists recovered a pair of burnt “arulae”

dating to the eleventh-tenth centuries. The function of arulae during the Bronze Age is

unknown and they may have had a strictly functional purpose as andirons, or used for

sacrifices or, as the excavators concluded, had a “propitiary purpose.”301 In each of these

structures, the presence of one or two elements that could be related to the typological

framework of religion is counterbalanced by noticeably more features typical of domestic

contexts.

Even more ambiguous is the function of two Iron Age and early Archaic huts at

Scirinda (29), located on the southern coast of Sicily at the mouth of the Platani river. In

Phase V (tenth-ninth century BCE) of the site’s chronology (beginning with Phase I in the

Middle Bronze Age), a large oval hut with an internal bench was built in the middle of

the settlement. Giuseppe Castellana made a parallel between this building (Hut 11) and

Huts Alpha II and 11 from Lipari, which G. Voza and Madeleine Cavalier have assessed

as public and/or religious, primarily because of its relatively larger dimensions.302 The

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300 Mollo Mezzina 1993: 141.301 Albanese Procelli 2006: 46.302 Castellana 1993-94: 748-49.

finds within the building at Scirinda, however, are not exactly extraordinary and make

any assignment of the building as 'sacred' rather problematic; they included dippers,

bowls, basins, and large pithoi, and two jugs. In Phase VI, long rectangular huts with

benches (Huts 1, 2, and 4) replaced the earlier structures while a large circular structure

with “a probable sacred function” was newly constructed. Carbon dating (non-calibrated)

fixed this phase between 764-679 BCE, right in the middle of the C14 Hallstätt

plateau.303

Only two structures in western Sicily can be said to have the material correlates of

religion and precede 650 BCE. The first is an Iron Age hut at Caltabellotta (15), thought

to have had a cultic function primarily because of its larger size.304 The hut had two

distinct occupation layers, one dating to the eighth-seventh centuries BCE, the other

dating to the Archaic period. The earlier level was made up of grey soil with orange and

impressed indigenous wares. Although the finds mostly resembled those of domestic

assemblages, a large pedestal cup stands out among them. Pedestal cups and basins

featured in the funerary offerings of Final Bronze and Early Iron Age tombs in Sicily, but

only rarely appeared in domestic contexts, particularly during the later parts of the Iron

Age. Their inclusion within the materials of this larger hut may indicate the practice of

rituals involving liquids (either drinking or lustration). In the sixth century BCE, the hut

was destroyed and a rectangular ‘sacellum’ was constructed over the remains. The

excavators took the placement of the sacellum over the earlier round structure as

supporting evidence for the cultic designation of the earlier structure, but this may be

inferring too much from the available evidence.

The second structure comes from Montagnoli di Menfi (30), near the mouth of the

Belice river. The Iron Age settlement consisted of a complex of indigenous huts dating to

the eighth and seventh centuries and was disposed between an enclosure wall and the

hillside. Hut 7, built sometime between 751-723 BCE (non-calibrated C14 date), was not

especially distinctive in its architectural form, but a number of materials found inside it

could allude to a range of ritual practices. Wine and table amphorae, jugs and a “large

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303 Castellana 2000: 263.304 Panvini 1993-94a: 759-62. It should be noted that only four huts are known from this phase of Caltabellotta so far.

vessel used for mixing lustral liquids” all relate to either drinking or possibly purification

rituals, while an “altarino” and a fair amount of caprine and small mammal bones

indicate that sacrifices and food consumption likely also occurred.305 The particular find

of a kernos, a unique vascular object with multiple mouths, has been thought to have had

strict ritual functions, possibly as an incense burner.306 Around the middle of the seventh

century BCE, the hut was destroyed and a new rectangular building was erected over the

remains almost immediately afterwards.

Other sites in the area such as Monte Maranfusa (24), Monte Iato (25), and Monte

d’Oro (26) are known to have had some type of eighth century settlement, but

information is limited by later building activity or small-scale excavation.307 Further

excavation at some of the sites identified in recent surveys in the Himera-Palermo

hinterland, particularly at Montagnola di Marineo (27), Cassaro di Castronuovo (28), and

Montagna dei Cavalli (40) could also shine more light on indigenous sites in

northwestern Sicily and western Sicily, but it is currently too soon to tell how much any

of these sites can contribute towards the Iron Age.308

Summary

When the Iron Age material is examined against the typological framework of

religion, certain patterns start to come into focus. It is clear, for example, that a certain

amount of odd behavior was focused around graves, ranging from a particular dedicatory

pattern (especially noticeable in the eastern sector of the study area), to rites of sacrifice,

to long-term visitation of tombs.309 Certain sites seem to have harnessed this activity into

very specific contexts, the areas around Tombs 5 and 24-25 at Polizzello and the tombs at

Entella being among the more noteworthy. Particular structures also appear as anomalies

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305 Castellana 2000: 266.306 Castellana 1993-94: 749-52; 2000: 267-68.307 See, respectively, Spatafora 1988-89: 711-13; Isler 1991; 1996; Di Stefano, SicArch11: 30-36.308 For example, those highlighted in Vassallo 1996 and 1999 and Di Stefano 1990.309 A long tradition of prehistoric and ‘protohistoric’ archaeology has existed in the eastern half of Sicily, but less so in the central-western half of Sicily up until recently. In both cases, there was, for some time, a near-exclusive focus on burial remains. The result of this methodological bias has been a predisposition in the data towards funerary evidence and a gap in the other areas of research. Although this picture is gradually changing and growing increasingly more diverse, the state of the evidence still demands that attention be paid to potential discrepancies in the data.

within their settlement areas, in light of their larger size, their finds, or the fact that they

were later replaced with finer, “religious” structures. In every case, however, certain

buildings and tombs alike can be shown to have material correlates of ritual activity,

although none of them appear to be exclusively “sacred” either. Thus, while some degree

of material religious expression existed at Iron Age sites in central-western Sicily, there

was a lack of centralized ritual or religious focus.

Things soon started to change, however. Site visibility and the articulation of

different spaces increases in general for the mid-seventh century on with the consequence

that archaeologists and historians have a far greater range of material to examine.

Functional ambiguity or multi-purpose utility (depending on one’s perspective) had

characterized earlier structures and tombs, but by the mid-seventh century BCE these

spaces were increasingly delimited and defined against one another. In addition, certain

areas became focal points of ritual activity, as inferred from their accumulation of

archaeological religious correlates. In the following section, I turn to the Archaic period

and the changes that occurred in indigenous Sicilian religious practice from the mid-

seventh century to the end of the fifth century BCE. Sicilian religion changed, indeed, but

it changed in very specific ways.

The transformation of indigenous Sicilian religion: 650-400 BCE

The visibility and durability of archaeological religious correlates in indigenous

western Sicily increases dramatically after 650 BCE, implying that the process of

"defining sacrality" (to use Albanese Procelli's words) was something that more and more

indigenous communities were experiencing as the Archaic period progressed. The

evidence presented below is organized both temporally and geographically. Each

subsection describes the evidence for a half-century. For each half-century period, the

description of the material primarily moves from the eastern part of the study area to the

western. Such divisions are somewhat arbitrary, but they allow for a clearer presentation

of the data and an analysis that is more temporally- and regionally-sensitive. I provide

another map of the Sicilian case-study region below, again indicating only the sites

mentioned in this section in order to compare the range of sites with those earlier sites in

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the previous section.

•3

•5

•7

•9

•6

•10

•11•12•13

•15

•16

•4

•18•19

•20

•21•25

•27•24

•26

•28

•30

•31

•33

•34

•32

•35•36

•37

•38

•43

•41

•40•39•44

Figure 3-2. Map of Archaic Sicily, with indigenous sites mentioned in the text

numbered.3. Sabucina. 4. Vassalaggi. 5. Caltanissetta. 7. Palma di Montechiaro. 9. Monte Saraceno. 10. Gibil Gabel. 11. Valle Oscura-Balate-Marianapoli. 12. Monte Raffe. 13. Polizzello. 15. Caltabellotta. 18. Poggioreale. 19. Entella. 20. Eryx. 21. Segesta. 24. Monte Maranfusa. 25. Monte Iato. 26. Monte d'Oro. 27. Montagnola di Marineo. 28. Cassaro di Castronuovo. 29. Scirinda. 30. Montagnoli di Menfi. 31. Contrada Tumazzo. 32. Colle Madore. 33. Monte Polizzo. 34. Sciacca-Monte Cronio. 35. Licata-Casalicchio. 36. Licata-Mollarella. 37. Monte Vecchia. 38. Monte Capodarso. 39. Terravecchia di Cuti. 40. Montagna dei Cavalli. 41. Vaccarizzo 2. 42. Badessa 1. 43. Cozzo Malacarne. 44. Cozzo Mususino.

650 to 600 BCE

The period of 650-600 BCE was, for many sites, a period of civic, spatial,

functional, and symbolic reorganization. In terms of religious correlates, the most

recurrent elements involved the designation of certain spaces, both open-air and built, for

ritualized activities, including animal sacrifice, votive deposition, drinking, and a

growing emphasis on symbolic forms of representation.

Monte Saraceno (9) is located along the eastern boundary of the study area in the

Salso river valley. After an occupational hiatus during the late Bronze Age, the site was

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reoccupied from the end of the eighth century BCE on. The first half of the seventh

century BCE has been termed “the indigenous phase” by Ernesto De Miro and Anna

Calderone, who excavated three circular huts and a small rectangular building on the

acropolis in the 1980s.310 All of these structures were destroyed by fire around 650 BCE,

but reconstruction commenced immediately afterwards. The urban plan of the site was

then revamped, with one of the new additions being an area on the margins of the

settlement, 500 meters below the acropolis, in a place that would later be directly beside

the only gate into the city.311 Some plowing near the northwest corner of a later structure

in the area turned up masses of ash, animal bones, and, according to the excavators, an

enormous quantity of pottery mixed with various fragments of statuettes and metal

objects.312 The amount of pottery that was found in the ash layer and that dated between

650 and 600 BCE was rich, although only general qualitative data is available for the

most part.313 Not finding any walls, Adamesteanu labeled the area a “primitive sanctuary”

while later scholars modified the designation to a “rural sanctuary without stone

structures.”314

Sabucina (3) was abandoned for the majority of the Iron Age, but the site was

again reoccupied by the end of the eighth century BCE. Elliptical and rectangular

buildings were built over the Bronze Age houses and an entirely new area (Sector A) was

constructed just outside the city wall near Gate II. The defining structure of this area was

a round building ('Hut-Temple A'), set off from the rest of the slope by a circular wall.

The building had a diameter of 7.5 meters and was accessed from the east through a wide

(0.8 m.) threshold, which was fronted with an irregular porch (3.4 x 1.6 m.) with Doric

columns in antis.315 Geometric-indigenous pottery spotted the interior floor, along with

two bronze-sheet belts and a louterion. The structure remained in use, accumulating

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310 De Miro et al. 1996; Calderone 1980-81: 604.311 Mingazzini 1938: 628-32; Adamesteanu 1956: 129-38.312 Adamesteanu 1956: 129.313 This includes Protocorinthian imported pottery, local pottery with geometric décor, and some fragments with zoomorphic decoration. Site report illustrations depicted two Early Corinthian kotylai, as well as an oinochoe and perhaps a larger bowl.314 Ibid.: 132; Calderone 1980-81: 604.315 De Miro 1980-81: 561-66.

many sixth- and fifth-century votive offerings, until c. 450 BCE when it burned. Another

round building ('Hut-Temple B') was built close by. Although slightly smaller than the

first, it contained a very similar assemblage. In addition to a bronze sheet decorated with

anthropomorphic decoration, two small zoomorphic altars (620-580 BCE) were brought

to light. An ex-voto find of a terracotta model of a tent-like building (beginning of the 6th

c. BCE) was also made; researchers have categorized it as a variation on the hut-temple

model.316

The architecture of the “hut-sacelli” seems distinctly different from the

contemporary rectangular houses of the settlement area and, as De Miro noted, presents a

combination of the built tradition of the late and Final Bronze Ages with newer forms of

public architecture seen in the Greek colonies, as reflected in the unique columned porch

of Building A. The architecture plus the location of the buildings-- outside of the

settlement and next to the later Gate II-- indicates that these were indeed buildings that

were "set apart," both physically and typologically, from their surroundings. In addition,

the larger size of the buildings, the investiture in furnishing Building A with columns and

stylish capitals, and the dedication of bronze belts seem to allude to some conspicuous

display of wealth. Finally, recent studies have shown that the sanctuary was situated

directly beside the major access point into Sabucina; the sector thus had an even greater

"public" character.

The bronze objects found in the two round buildings may also be understood as

objects of dedication with symbolic significance. Their anthropomorphic designs have

parallels with both funerary materials from the early Iron Age and other Archaic votive

deposits in eastern Sicily.317 The presence of a louterion in Building A signifies lustral

activities and a concern with symbolic purity while the two portable altars in Building B

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316 Guzzone 2006: 73.317 Albanese Procelli 2006: 53-57; some have suggested that the anthropomorphic iconography should be seen as representations of divinity, an argument that might be supported based on other anthropological studies of the close relationship between metallurgy, magic, and ideas of divine power. I only make the argument here, however, that presence of the belts shows the dedication of valuable (both from an intrinsic and symbolic point of view) items alongside other material correlates.

perhaps indicate sacrificial activities.318 The lack of specifics for the other ceramics from

the buildings prevents us from drawing any conclusions about the accompanying

equipment and their relationship to other religious correlates, such as elements for

inducing the religious experience, the presence of special equipment, the ingestion of

food and drink, or even the repetition of certain forms-- at least for the seventh century

BCE. Even so, in comparison to the earlier “Hypogeum 1/83,” Sector A has both a higher

number of correlates and was more clearly designated for exclusively sacred purposes.

The size of the area and quantities of material, however, suggests that the area’s ritual

significance may have only been just beginning to gain meaning and purpose and may

have been limited to a rather restricted group of participants.

Excavation at Caltanissetta (5), about five kilometers away from Sabucina, is

rather spotty (the modern city covers the ancient site), but researchers have still been able

to uncover a large ellipsoidal, peripteral hut dating to the mid-seventh century BCE on

the Redentore Hill. A badly preserved bench ran around three of the interior walls, but

nothing seems to have been found inside the building. Most of the finds were made

outside of the structure, including a couple of cooking pots and incised vessels, a large

locally-manufactured, Corinthianizing krater, and a clay statuette of a seated female

dating to the late seventh-century BCE. Contemporarily, a square-like room was built just

south of the hut. Together, the grouping of hut and rectangular room “recall the sacred

complex of Sabucina.”319

Back on the southern coast, areas of ritual activity also cropped up around Palma

di Montechiaro, in the area of the Castellazzo hill (7) and near Contrada Tumazzo (31).

At the former, excavations near the FBA structures (including the “cultic hut” described

in the previous section) identified a deposit on the slope and a rectangular building (5 x

3.6 m.) on the acropolis. The deposit contained Early Corinthian pottery, two "Daedalic"

statuettes, and a dinos, a vessel used for mixing wine. Inside the building was a mid-

sixth-century louterion (mid-6th c.) while an open-air altar was outside it. Thirty meters

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318 Although "a thick layer of ash" is mentioned, there is no further attribution for the ash-- i.e ash from sacrificial activity vs. ash from the destruction of the building-- making any conclusions about it problematic.319 Panvini 1993-94a: 756; see also Orlandini 1962: 102.

away, the excavators found a trench with the remains of animal sacrifices, statuettes and a

terracotta support in the shape of a column.320 Further evidence of sacrifice could be seen

in the black, fatty soil of the Archaic layer that was associated with the building, a layer

that also contained traces of burning and fragments of lamps throughout. At the latter

site, ritual activity is attested by three wooden female statuettes ('xoana') in the Daedalic

style found in a sulfur spring there during excavations in the 1930s.321

The acropolis at Polizzello (13), previously unbuilt, also underwent serious

transformations in the course of the seventh century BCE. A thick wall fortified its

entirety, with a gate in the southwest tract. Four circular or semi-circular buildings were

built inside the acropolis space, all of which were surrounded by a temenos wall. In the

northern part of the temenos-enclosure were two round buildings, partially overlapping

(Buildings A and B).322 Building A, built first, had a diameter of eight meters and was

entered through a trapezoidal porch on the south side. A bench was built against the

interior wall and a circular “platform” altar was placed directly in the center of the

building. The floor was pocked with small fossa deposits, covered by fragments of large

vessels and delimited with stones. At least three kraters were also found in different parts

of the building. Finds of late Protocorinthian skyphoi from the second phase of the

building dated its earliest usage to sometime before 640 BCE. The larger (10 m. diam.)

Building B was built after A, but the layers overlap in chronology.323 Like Building A,

this structure also had an internal bench, altar, and a small rectangular porch, as well as

another room appended near the entrance. Depositions of bronzes, pottery, and other

objects were found in a thick layer of ash, along with deer and other animal bones, shells,

and a bovine leg bone.

Three other structures were erected in the southwest sector of the acropolis. One

building, a rectangular building measuring 11.6 x 9.25 meters, is only known from the

1926 excavation notebooks of Carta.324 De Miro excavated Buildings C and D, both of

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320 Castellana 1983: 120-128.321 Caputo 1938.322 De Miro 1988: 29.323 Ibid: 30.324 Palermo 1981: 105.

which have rather unusual architectural features. Building C is in actuality a semicircular

‘exedra’ structure formed by a large curvilinear wall (of which only the foundation course

remains) and a rectilinear wall that connected the two ends of the curved wall. A

rectangular enclosure of 6 x 4.5 meters was set in between the walls of the exedra

structure. At the middle of this enclosure stood a circular cooked clay platform, covered

by a layer of burning and the remains of small animals. Three segments of wall (called

“benches” in the site reports) faced the enclosure and created a performance-like space.

Directly beside Building C was another circular building (Building D), 8 meters in

diameter, also provided with an internal bench, trapezoidal porch and a type of bothros at

the center of the structure. At least five major depositions were left in pits that had been

dug into its floor.

Further to the west, the site of Montagnoli (near Menfi) (30) underwent many

changes following a settlement-wide destruction right around the middle of the seventh

century BCE. The close chronological time frame of the pre- and post-destruction

materials indicates that the site’s residents quickly rebuilt over the same areas of the

previous settlement.325 A rectangular room was put up over the remains of Hut 7 while a

circular structure was built again over the remains of Hut 1. For this new phase, burnt

debris from the earlier Hut 1 was used to make the new floor that was then used for

depositing small vessels, jugs, aryballoi, and cups (all dating to the Middle-Late

Corinthian period) as well as bronzes, such as pendants, beads, rings and fibulae.

Seventh-century BCE religious activity seems likely for sites in western Sicily

too. The primary building at Colle Madore (32) is a mid-sixth century BCE round

building, but sub-sixth century layers show that open-air practices preceded it and

Vassalo believes that a seventh-century building was probably also present.326 Ritual

activity took place at the highest point of the settlement, and their hilltop location served

to separate the space from the rest of the site. The numerous materials that have come

from the area include faunal remains of large and small animals with cut marks and a

mass of cups, corresponding to practices of sacrifice and drinking rituals. Seventh-

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325 Castellana 1983; 2000: 269-70. 326 Vassallo 1999: 60-61; 2000. No structural remains have been dated to this period so far, however.

century bronzes also made up the majority of a mid-sixth-century deposit; the inclusion

of heirloom-type materials could be interpreted as a reflection of the archaic nature of the

site.

The majority of seventh-century materials at Segesta (21) come from the Grotta

Vanella area near the Monte Barbaro summit. The area has accumulated years of

erosional deposits and occasional slips from overhanging rock outcrops. But the finds,

which included a high percentage of pisé and other building materials, have led Juliette

de la Genière to argue that a structure must have existed somewhere in the area. Given

the nature of the deposit, the provisional structure can be neither accurately dated nor

pinned down to an exact location. What is clear, however, is that the majority of finds

date between 625 and 450 BCE and consist, overwhelmingly, of drinking materials.

Quantitative details on the chronological distribution of the finds are disappointingly

absent, but de la Genière counted over 1400 cups, 12 Corinthian wine amphorae, 47

kraters, and numerous oinochoai and wine jugs.327 One can only speculate on the

specifics of religious activity per se in the area between 650 and 600 BCE, but the

presence of entire wine consumption assemblages makes drinking, and drinking often, a

very likely focus of this area by 600 BCE.

Monte Polizzo (33) also seems to have been engaging in some type of religious

activity during the seventh century. It’s likely that the site dates back to the Final Bronze

or early Iron Age, based on occasional finds of Ausonian-type material, but it definitely

was fully occupied by 700 BCE. Around 625 BCE, the site was completely revamped,

and terraces were cut all over the settlement, on both the acropolis and in other parts of

the domestic sector.328 The acropolis was the central religious area of the site from the

beginning of the sixth century on, and it seems probable that its west terrace was used as

a sanctuary as early as 625 BCE as well. Excavations revealed a series of small rectlinear

buildings there, some of whose floor surfaces had small pits cut into the floor with small

objects and ash left inside them.

For the period 650-600 BCE, it seems clear that more indigenous communities

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327 de la Genière 1997: 1033-34.328 Morris et al. 2004; Mühlenboch 2008.

were engaging in behavior we can understand in terms of religious correlates and that this

behavior was increasingly concentrated into specially-reserved parts of settlements.

Across sites, however, the particular forms in which these “correlates” appear are not

exactly regular. Thus, we can speak of some consistency in the general phenomenon of

religion becoming more materially visible, but less so about its localized manifestations.

Table 3-3 (in the conclusion section of this chapter) summarizes the material as it relates

to the material correlates I laid out in Chapter 1; the rest of this section qualifies this

summary.

For nearly all of the known sites that designated a specific (not necessarily built)

location in which other religious material correlates were identified, the space was set

apart from the rest of the settlement, sometimes being physically demarcated by a

temenos wall, like at Polizzello and Sabucina. It was often located on top of an acropolis

or on the site’s margins, suggesting that the sites were chosen for both their natural

associations (“high places”) and for reasons of public access or visibility. Built structures,

when present, varied in form, ranging from small rectangular shrines to circular or

elliptical buildings, to larger “hut-sacellum” complexes. In two cases, Sabucina and

Polizzello, the structures made use of highly distinctive architectural planning and

decoration, incorporating elements like porches, columns, and internal benches. Other

more self-standing "attention-focusing devices" were sometimes present, but not always,

mostly in the form of altars. At Polizzello, the construction of stacked benches into the

hillside and facing a semicircular platform created a veritable theater within the acropolis

confines; such a structural feature was nothing if not attention-focusing.

All of the sites engaged in the dedication of objects and the offering or

consumption of food and drink, mostly accompanying sacrifices of animals. These

practices overlap to some degree, but the emphasis on full assemblages of table- and

drinking-wares, rather than on only a single vessel form, and the absence of large food

storage vessels leads me to believe that the consumption of food and drink by participants

was especially significant, even as early as the late seventh century BCE. Again, fully

quantitative measurements of the dedicatory assemblages are encumbered by the lack of

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specific numbers (particularly for the ceramics), but a qualitative analysis is still possible.

At all sites, ceramics, particularly of table wares, dominate the dedications. A degree of

variety marks the dedications-- at Caltanissetta, for example, a number of pentole or

cooking pots (undocumented at any of the other sites) were found, and both Palma di

Montechiaro and Montagnoli di Menfi were found to have a number of aryballoi, rare at

the other sites. However, even with the odd instances of individual types of vessels, other

forms were repetitive: cups, pitchers, and kraters or dinoi, were found in every context.

Statuettes were found at six of the nine sites, but in limited quantities, and only two sites

had symbolically significant objects that were not figural--these included the worked

bovine leg bone and bronze trident figurine at Polizzello and the two "aniconic" stone

spheres at the contrada Tumazza spring. Five sites produced metal items of both

ornamental and utilitarian nature. The striking exception to the general picture of

dedicatory practice, however, is Polizzello. Here, while table-wares still predominate the

ceramic assemblage, they are matched by a near equal number of ornamental objects.

Precise counts were never reported, but the descriptions of the deposits list "numerous"

and "a great amount" of bronze, amber, ivory, and worked bone pendants and beads,

bronze and silver fibulae, bone plaques, rings, and a polished bone handle.329 Also

unique to Polizzello is the dedication of knives, spindlewhorls, animal figurines, as well

as the presence of knuckle-bones.

The relative similarity of the dedicatory assemblages, their relationship with food

and particularly with drinking, and the exceptionality of Polizzello are all interesting

features to note for the religious developments of the seventh century BCE. The

disproportionate number of liquid-related vessels, particularly those related to wine

consumption, can furthermore be correlatively understood as materials that induce or

enhance the emotional state of the participants. Wine seems to be the major element here,

since the majority of forms are typically used for wine mixing, pouring, and drinking.

Although we cannot rule out other enhancing elements such as dance, incense, or music,

wine seems to have been a major part of these contexts.

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329 Ornamental objects were also dedicated at Montagnoli, but no date is provided and their association with Middle-Late Corinthian pottery should date them more to the first half of the sixth century BCE.

For most of the sites, the evidence for drinking wares is accompanied by evidence

for animal sacrifice; at only two sites-- Caltanissetta and Montagnoli di Menfi-- was this

not the case and this may in fact be due to the quality of the excavation. Altars were not

always necessary-- three sites seem to have carried out open-air sacrifices without any

built structure. The aspect of the sacrifice could also vary from site to site: sacrifices that

pertain to built altars were perhaps experienced quite differently than when the sacrifice

was made either in the open air, or dug into the ground. The victims themselves could

have different implications. The data for seventh century BCE faunal remains are

particularly bad, but from what we have, sites seem to offer up a variety of different

animals-- boar and bovine remains were found at both Castellazo Palma di Montechiaro

and the spring sanctuary; deer, bovine, and pigs were found at Polizzello while mostly

pig and ovi-caprine remains defined the practices at Sabucina.

Evidence for other types of specialized "equipment" or “facilities” is less

frequent. We might include the portable altars from Sabucina or the large numbers of

lamps found at Palma di Montechiaro in this category, but unless we repeat the count of

drinking vessels mentioned above, “specialized equipment” does not seem as well-

attested as other correlates.330

The challenge is much greater to say anything definitive about the symbolic and/

or supernatural associations these sites had. Objective assessments of what is symbolic

and what is not are notoriously difficult (or, more likely, impossible) to make without

falling back on predetermined concepts and biases, but the alternative—i.e. not hazarding

a guess—is equally unappealing. In the case of this material, the repetition of

anthropomorphic figurines or objects and their deposition in ritual-rich locations (for

example, the stone-lined, tile-covered pits at Polizzello or the spring of Contrada

Tumazzo) alludes to some degree of symbolic significance, be they divinities or symbols

of subservience to a higher, unknown power. In more theoretical terms, however, the

mounting evidence for anthropomorphic material with religious connotations perhaps

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330 Arguably, we could include the presence of benches (Caltanissetta, Polizzello), altars, and votive trenches specifically designed to contain sacrificial remains, to the “performance” space at Polizzello, but I exclude them from this part of the analysis for the sake of simplicity.

illustrates an ongoing sense of both understanding and communicating with "the divine"

on a cognitively human level. The evidence for this (very significant) religious

understanding, however, seems to be fairly limited for the seventh-century BCE.

Alternatively, it may also have not been that important to symbolically demonstrate this

understanding through physical forms.

Associations with cleanliness and pollution are relatively rare, if we only rely on

the presence of louteria or other basin-type forms; they were found at only two sites. It is

possible that purity was achieved in other ways as well; we certainly cannot rule out

lustral functions for either the many liquid-related vessels (although oinochoai are far less

numerous than is usually assumed) or for the sacrifices of young animals. Interesting as

well are the few clear natural or hypernatural associations of the seventh-century BCE

sites, beyond the contexts that are located on acropolis summits. High locations are

certainly visibly more imposing within the natural landscape, and thus have natural

associations, but only one site (the spring sanctuary) is specifically associated with a

more 'natural phenomenon'-like location.

600 to 550 BCE

The sixth century BCE in central-western Sicily has generally been recognized as

a period of dramatic change, manifested through urbanization, new consumption patterns,

and religious practices. In this section, I look more specifically at the patterns of change

for religious space and practice, again following the typological framework. For

consistency, I again begin with sites in the eastern part of the study region and move

westwards.

Monte Saraceno (9) was reorganized during the seventh century BCE, but the

most visible changes for the settlement occurred in the first half of the sixth century. The

most dramatic change involved the monumentalization of the acropolis area, where three

structures arose after a large artificial terrace was cut into the rock around 550 BCE. A

circuit wall surrounded the three buildings, simultaneously fortifying the acropolis and

demarcating it from the settlement area on the lower terraces. The largest building was a

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rectangular, bipartite structure of massive dimensions (20 x 40 m.). In addition to its

location and position on the acropolis, the building was distinguished by a number of

architectural terracottas that would have been positioned on the roof; stylistically, they

are most similar to decorative elements used in the temples at Gela. Inside the building,

the excavators found fragments of amphorae, hydriae, and cups as well as two figurines

of suppliants holding baby pigs, a fragmentary terracotta head, and two portable altars.

The two other structures were both smaller than the first building and seem to have also

been at least partially decorated with antefixes and other architectural elements. Two

fragments of moulds in the shape of female figures perhaps indicate the presence or

association of the buildings with craftwork.331 No other finds were published for the two

buildings.

On the lower terrace, a small, bipartite rectangular building (8 x 14 m.) was

constructed over the seventh-century BCE ritual area (described in the previous section).

A curving wall circled the building and connected it to the main fortification wall,

thereby creating a small, enclosed space directly next to the major gate to the city. The

major thoroughfare that connected the settlement with the necropolis and the river valley

also passed through this gate. The structure was decorated, at least by the end of the sixth

century BCE, with brightly colored cornices and other elements.332 Ceramics dating

between 600-550 BCE were abundant in the area; Adamesteanu recorded a "rich

documentation of pottery, particularly in the form of alabastra and kothones," although

no other forms were specified.333 Outside the building, burnt bones, metal objects, roof

materials, and fragments of pottery and terracotta figurines continued to be left in the area

to the northwest of the building.334 At least two altars were found nearby, having been

reused as building material in the fourth-century BCE construction of a fortification

tower.

Nearby at the site of Gibil Gabel (10), excavations revealed a small, rock-cut (2.6

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331 Fischer Hansen 2002: 178.332 Mingazzini 1938: 641-655; Adamesteanu 1956: 128.333 Adamesteanu 1956: 129.334 Siracusano 1996: 89.

m deep) structure about 12 meters away from the main gate of the fortification wall.335

Various architectural elements were found inside the building, including cornices, tiles,

and kalypteres hegemones, the large, ornamental cups used in roof decoration. A small

altar composed of stones and roof tile fragments stood in the middle of the building and a

bench ran along the interior walls. All of the finds were removed from a thick layer of ash

and bone around the altar and consisted of local geometric archaic pottery and a clay

figurine resembling a cow. The presence of a black glaze skyphos, possibly dating to the

first half of the fifth-century BCE, sets a relative time period of use for the building.

The sector of the two seventh-century “hut shrines” at Sabucina (3) remained in

use throughout the sixth century while another rectangular structure (9.25 x 6.5 m.) was

added around 550 BCE.336 This latter building was connected to Hut-Shrine A through an

irregularly shaped, enclosed area, thereby creating an extramural monumentalized

complex.337 Inside the rectangular building was a bench and a circular altar with signs of

burning; both had deposits of burnt pig and sheep bones, aes rude, and local geometric

pottery (of which only two cups and an indigenous krater were recorded) on them. Early

sixth-century deposits of a bronze plate, a rhyton, and a dipper were left in Hut-Shrine A,

while a clay model of a hut-shrine found in Hut-Shrine B also dates to this period. A later

votive deposit (c. 475 BCE) contained sixth-century (or earlier) materials, including

several early skyphoi, a figurine of a ram, and another hut-shrine model. Given their

Archaic date and their findspot just inside the threshold of Hut-Shrine A, they may have

been relics of earlier activity in the area that were deposited as a meaningful nod to the

past.

An apsidal building on the neighboring Redentore hill of Caltanissetta (5) also

dates to between 600 and 550 BCE. Built on top of a seventh-century BCE rectangular

structure, the building has most often been compared to structures from Monte San

Mauro (seventh c. BCE) and Castiglione (late sixth c. BCE) in eastern Sicily, and on

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335 Adamesteanu 1958a: 393-94; 1958b: 386.336 De Miro 1980-81: 565-66.337 Excavators noted that this area and the layers underneath the rectangular building seem to have been a place for ritual depositions (De Miro 1980-81: 564).

account of such comparisons, it has been described as a religious building.338 However,

none of the materials found there were described in full, making it difficult to infer

anything about the structure beyond its somewhat uncommon architecture.

Along the southern coast, ritual activity continued at the seventh-century BCE

structures around Palma di Montechiaro. Amphorae (at least 2), and cups (at least 3) were

found in the Castellazzo structure (7). Animals continued to be sacrificed at the contrada

Tumazzo sanctuary (31) and there was a notable increase in both vessels and figurines (at

least 5) deposited there. A large model of a throne that may date to this period was also

found. Another spring near Sciacca (at Monte Cronio) (34) may have also begun to be

used during this period, as supported by finds of pottery and female figurines found in it

and the natural rock cavities around it. The editors of the site refer to evidence of earlier

visitation of the site, but do not elaborate further.

After suffering a rather devastating destruction near the end of the seventh century

BCE, the site of Caltabellotta (15), situated in the hills between the Platani and Belice

river valleys, revived at the beginning of the sixth century BCE. One of the eighth-

century huts was resurfaced and the building was used once again at this time. Evidence

related to the building is limited to a few vessels that were found below a layer of

blackened soil; they include fragments from two amphorae, a bowl, an oinochoe, two

Ionic B1 cups, and a Middle Corinthian kotyle.

In the western part of the island, early sixth-century BCE remains have been

identified on the hilltop of Colle Madore (32), in the Contrada Mango and the Grotta

Vanella areas at Segesta (21), at Monte Iato (25), and at Monte Polizzo (33). At Segesta,

de la Genière found traces of wall remains in the Contrada Mango area, which may

indicate an earlier archaic structure there that pre-dates the later sixth-century BCE Doric

structures (see below). At Monte Iato, seventh- and sixth-century pottery and some wall

remains have been found under the majority of the later Classical and Hellenistic

buildings, although the data have been too diffuse to say anything beyond the fact that the

Archaic settlement was fairly extensive. On the hilltop of Colle Madore, remains of an

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338 Panvini 1993-94a: 759-60.

earlier, round building were exposed beneath the round structure of the mid-sixth century

BCE. The abundant early sixth century BCE pottery found in this area is probably

affiliated with building, as would be the numerous faunal remains-- of mostly bovines,

and ovicaprids, and some deer and swine-- found on the highest part of the hill. The

differential distribution of meaty and non-meaty bones indicates different activities

involving the meat occurring in separate parts of the hill.

At Monte Polizzo, a round building (6.4 m. in diameter) was constructed at the

very top of the acropolis sometime between 600 and 575 BCE.339 The building was

subdivided into three small chambers, one of which contained a large hearth or basin and

another that had a deep pit filled with ash and bits of pottery. Drinking wares were

abundant in and around the building, and other smaller hearths and pits were dug into the

surfaces outside the structure. The building was partially surrounded by enclosure walls

and a large, ashlar-built altar was also built just to the south of the round building.

Unfortunately, the altar is too far from the round building for the stratigraphic

relationship to be determined. It is also dug into the bedrock, so nothing definite can be

said about its date except that it was definitely in the use during the sixth century. In the

fourth century BCE, the altar was dismantled down to its bottom course, and a huge heap

of antler and coarseware debris was dumped over it. Under that dump, however, were

hundreds of burnt and unburnt bone fragments of red deer feet, skull, and antlers.

Macrobotanical studies at Monte Polizzo discovered a remarkable amount of poppy seeds

that came from the acropolis area (both on the upper and lower terraces). None of the

macrofossils included the right part of the poppy to be able to tell if they were being

processed as opium, but it certainly cannot be ruled out either.340

Literary sources also claim that the famous temple at Eryx (20, modern Erice)

dated to this period. The modern and ancient cities occupy the top of one of the highest

mountains in western Sicily and overlook the sea to the north and west and the interior

plains to the east and south. The presence of the well-preserved medieval castle and town

makes archaeological studies of the site difficult, and most of the information related to

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339 Morris et al. 2004.340 Morris 2008; Stika 2008.

Eryx, and the temple in particular, comes from (mostly later) literary sources. The texts

say that the sanctuary consisted primarily of a temenos, temple, and open-air altar (Thuc.

VI.46; Polyb. I.55.7-9; Diod. IV.83.1-7; Strabo VI.2.6; Aelian. NA, X.5). Excavations in

the 1930s also revealed the presence of a cistern near the presumed temenos area, whose

date and function appear rather unclear. A platform (dating to the Classical period) found

between the temple area and the so-called “wall of Daedalus” (Diod. IV.78.4) may have

also had some association with the temple, but it has been impossible to decisively

conclude anything about its function.341 In the literary sources, the wealth of the temple

and its dedications was legendary, so much so that it was used by the Segestans in their

scheme to convince the Athenians to support them in a war against Selinus (Thuc. VI.46;

Polyb. I.55.7-8; Diod. IV.83; Paus. VIII.24.6). As to the materials actually found, the

wealth of the temple will likely continue to only come from the written word since the

materials that have been dug up include “impressed and geometric-incised pottery,”

fragments of amphorae, lamps, skyphoi, an olpetta, a pithos handle, a loomweight, a roof-

tile, and the broken head from a clay figurine of a bird. The pottery that was

photographed seems to primarily be of carinated bowls typical of indigenous western

Sicilian sites. The notes on the stratigraphic relationships between artifacts and building

remains are fairly vague, but from the descriptions and illustrations, most of the material

seems consistent with a late seventh-/early sixth-century BCE date for the early levels.

The early sixth century BCE largely saw a continuation and expansion of processes that

began in the seventh century, particularly in terms of the material expression of ritual or

religious practice. More sites designated areas for ritualized activity, most of the time

setting them distinctly apart from the rest of the settlement, in either high places or,

particularly in the eastern part of the study area, directly next to city gates at main access

points.342 Eight sacred areas were now on acropoleis and three sites incorporated natural

springs, all of which can be called places with natural associations. Enclosure walls

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341 Cultrera 1936: 300.342 This preference seems to indicate the increasingly "public" character of the areas (and, by association, the dedicatory assemblages).

became more mainstream after 600 BCE, appearing in six new locations and where in the

seventh century the designated areas were only occasionally supplied with buildings,

most had at least one built space (14 out of 16) during this period. The architecture of

these buildings seems to have been increasingly specialized and "attention-focusing,"

particularly through size (for example, the acropolis area at Monte Saraceno, whose

dimensions overshadowed those of contemporary Greek sanctuaries at Kamarina,

Heloron, Kasmenai, and Akrai), and especially when relative to other buildings in the

settlement. Buildings with architectural decoration clearly were specially marked and

show a higher investment of resources as well. Greater investment can also be noted for

the larger buildings, at least one of which (Monte Saraceno) must have required quite a

bit of labor and wealth for engineering a huge terrace and four new buildings.343 The

plans of these buildings also show increasing specialization, mostly via two styles, the

rectangular (7 sites) and the curvilinear or round (7 sites too). Attention focusing devices

like central altars (9) or benches (4) became more common as well.

Animal sacrifice continued at the older seventh century structures, but also was

newly attested (via faunal remains) at five other sites. Older structures also saw more

dedications in the sixth century. Figurines of various forms (female, suppliant with piglet,

and animals) were found at eight different sites, and can be considered, together with

other zoomorphic figurines and non-animistic forms, as corresponding to correlates of

iconographic and symbolic representation; this seems particularly underlined at Sabucina

by the archaic character of the dedications. A certain amount of "luxury" permeated the

dedicatory assemblages of some sites: besides the historical but archaeologically-

unattested wealth at Eryx, metals made up small percentages of the assemblages at Monte

Saraceno, Sabucina, and Colle Madore, while metals and bone ornaments also featured in

the material from the Grotta Vanella area. Dominating the assemblages once again,

however, were forms related to wine consumption: even excluding the overwhelming

number of materials from the Grotta Vanella area ("countless B1 cups" and "Over a 1000

B2 cups"), cups, wine amphorae, kraters, kothones, and oinochoai make up close to 82%

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343 Although nothing comes close to matching the buildings or material at Polizzello still.

of the total dedications.344 The emphasis on wine consumption materials seems to

indicate the continuation and even increase in the role that wine played in these contexts.

Finally, unless we count drinking assemblages or other features as “specialized

equipment,” or other non-specific forms as evidence for concerns with cleanliness, both

of these categories remained relatively low, only being found at one additional site each.

These were the most distinguishing features of the early sixth century BCE as

seen through the lens of religious archaeological correlates. Such developments, however,

were even more striking in the later part of the sixth century, to which I now turn.

550 to 500 BCE

In the first half of the sixth century, the building activity at Monte Saraceno (9)

had mostly involved the acropolis and terrace area near the city wall. Between 550 and

500 BCE, however, the focus (at least in putting up new buildings) shifted to the

domestic part of the site on the lower terrace. Five new buildings stand out on account of

their large size and seem to have involved more than domestic living.345 The first two,

“Casa D” and “Casa F,” were of similar form (two small rooms opening onto a larger

enclosed space), but were built within separate city blocks. A clay altar was found inside

the enclosure of Casa D, along with many ceramic vessels and a strange deposit of 61

loomweights. One of the rooms inside Casa F included an oven and a small structure of

little stones.

The third new center of activity was an enclosed area inside Block A2.346

Although the wall-enclosed space had a number of buildings, two structures primarily

defined the area. One was a bipartite rectangular building that was attached to an

enclosed space. An additional small room was connected to the backside of this building.

Various accoutrements were found inside and around the building, including an altar

structure, several statuettes, a basin and perirrhanterion, and four arulae. Vessels and

animal bones were found scattered in the open area outside the building and inside the

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344 The numbers can only be estimations, but the minimum number of total dedicated objects is at least 107.345 De Miro et al. 1996.346 Ibid: 80-81.

smaller room, as well as two loomweights and a deposit of amphorae. A similar mix of

finds characterized the other major structure in the area, a rectangular building located on

the southern edge of the enclosed space. The two special features of the building were a

louterion and a painted altar, as well as a strange clay cylinder whose function is elusive.

An especially dense quantity of cups and lamps were found in association with the

building, as well as a deposit of eleven loomweights.

The final major addition to the lower terrace at Monte Saraceno was a building

now somewhat misleadingly labeled a hestiatorion.347 The structure was a monumental,

bipartite, rectangular building with an open space to the south. The floor level of the main

room (Room 48) had a circular oven in the center of the room and a small monolithic

altar in the northeast corner. Between the western door jamb and the south corner was

also a circular block with a central cavity used to support large vessels. Seven liquid-

related vessels were found in the southeast corner. The collapse layer above the floor

level contained a mix of sixth- and fifth-century BCE pottery, the majority of which were

various imported and local cup and jug fragments, and animal bones. Similar finds

characterized the adjoining room, Room 35, in addition to a krater and a basin.

An extra-urban complex similar in form to that of Block A2 at Monte Saraceno

also was built at Sabucina in the second half of the sixth-century.348 The anchoring

building of the complex was a bipartite rectangular structure; the other buildings date to

the fifth-century BCE. The complex was retained by a wall at the north and was likely

much larger than it now appears since modern terracing has destroyed most of the area to

the west (in Sector C). Also, back in Sector A, two more buildings were added to the

round- and rectangular-buildings complex. Rooms A and B were rock-cut, roofed

buildings that seem to have been designed for the differential deposition or storage of

goods. In Room B, for example, the majority of finds were lamps and Akragantine coins

found on an internal bench. Another area, Sector C, may have included even more

buildings (now destroyed by years of agriculture) or may have been an open space

associated with the bipartite structure and the complex in Sector A.

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347 Ibid: 83. 348 Guzzone 2006: 40-43.

The settlement of Vassallaggi (4) is disposed over five terraces on an elongated

plateau southwest of Caltanissetta in the Salso river valley and 40 kilometers north of

Licata. Although the site is traditionally said to be founded in the seventh century BCE,

the organization of its urban area and various residential complexes dates primarily to the

sixth century while the more public areas of the site were mostly built after 550 BCE.349

One of the most notable areas was an enclosed space on the plateau area of Hill 2. A

small, rectangular building (9.2 x 4.6 m.) and a monumental ashlar altar were located at

the center of enclosure. Painted antefixes similar to those from Gela and Akragas were

found inside the enclosure along with various deposits of female seated and standing

statuettes and arulae.350 A number of buildings directly outside of the enclosure seem to

be related to the building and the activities inside it, based on their finds; they included

terracottas, weapons, and iron and bronze tools.351 The area also is attached to a large

open area on the plateau, which has generally been interpreted as an agora-like space.

The evidence for the central-southern coast also increases in this period. At Palma

di Montechiaro, no new buildings can be dated to this period, but the number of statuettes

at the Castellazzo structure (7) increases between 550 and 500 BCE, particularly around

the altar. Two new structures were, however, built near Licata. The first, located on

contrada Casalicchio (35), was cut into the rock and a number of deposits were left inside

and around the structure, some using natural holes in the rock.352 The finds primarily

consisted of terracotta statuettes, various local and imported vessels, and two pani of

bronze. The recovery of a mid-fourth-century skyphos with inscription Thestan Mnamôn

not only attests to visitation in the area still in the fourth century, but has also led scholars

to believe that the structure involved a cult linked to water divinities.353 The second

structure was built on the Mollarella promontory (36), on the hills west of Licata.

Although the wall remains were rather few (having been damaged by plowing), many

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349 Orlandini 1971: 111.350 Griffo 1958; De Miro 1962: 143-44; Tusa and De Miro 1983: 246-50; Orlandini 1959: 100; Meijden 1993: 165, 312, and 326.351 Fischer Hansen 2002: 155-56.352 Fiorentini 1980-81: 583.353 Manni et al. 1982: 176; Wilson 1996: 89-90.

objects were found deposited in pits. The finds included masks, statuettes, ornamental

objects, crude bronze, and a variety of local (uncatalogued) and Corinthian pottery

(primarily kotylai, amphorae, and pyxides).354

Up the Platani river valley, Monte Raffe (12) is one site that has much better

evidence for the latter half of the sixth century than previous periods. Two structures

especially stand out, based on their finds and architecture. The first was located on the

eastern terrace of the site. It consisted of a bipartite structure, almost entirely dug out of

rock, forcing access to the building to be from above and down a staircase on one side.355

A cistern about 3.5 meters deep was located on the eastern side of the building. Although

its function is a bit unclear, ash, carbon pieces, and pottery fragments were found at the

bottom of the cistern and signs of burning were present on the floor nearby. Materials,

primarily of vessels and statuettes, were found throughout the structure, but were

especially concentrated on the steps of the staircase and in the area immediately in front

of it. Based on the finds, the last phase of use for this building seems to date between the

fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The other structure was found just outside the city wall

(down slope from the 'staircase building'). Also at least partially rock-cut, the area

consisted of an enclosed area that surrounded a large central altar and a bench that was

cut out of the rock face. It is unclear whether a separate built structure accompanied these

remains or whether the rock formed a sort of natural open-air structure. In any case, there

were still a number of significant finds associated with the area, such as a large number of

female statuettes, lamps, vessels, and loomweights that were found on and around the

altar. The complex seems to have been frequented up until the end of the fourth century

BCE.356

Further to the west at Caltabellotta (15), the large hut of the previous century was

still in use during the second half of the sixth century.357 In addition, a new tripartite,

rectangular structure was built on the second terrace of the site at the end of the sixth

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354 De Miro and Fiorentini 1976: 423-55; Carità 1979. 355 Lagona 1996. 356 Lagona 1996.357 Panvini 1988-89: 564.

century BCE.358 The central room of the building was accessed through an entrance on

the long western side, preceded by a porch. On the floor level of this room, the

excavators found a statuette (Athena Lindia-type) and two loomweights. Eight more

loomweights were found on the floor of the third room. A fourth room, located to the

northwest of the building, had a rectangular basin probably used for ablutions. The

building was used up to the end of the fifth century, when it was destroyed.

In western Sicily, there was a remarkable increase in the visibility of sites after

550 BCE, most notably of those with religious-like functions. The construction of a series

of structures at Colle Madore (32) dates to this period. A new curvilinear hut-shrine was

put up on the hilltop, while an additional rectangular building and accompanying

“workshop” were built on a large artificial terrace cut into the slope to the south.359 The

rectangular building measured 7 x 9 meters and included an internal bench and a

foundation deposit in the southwest corner composed of jugs, drinking cups, a jar and 18

bronze objects (dating between 850 and 550 BCE).360 A number of other objects,

including a large krater, amphorae, pithoi, a sculpted aediculum and a large louterion,

were found inside the building as well. Fragments of cups were found inside and outside

the building while a hut model, two kernos vessels and architectural antefixes were

discovered in the vicinity of the structure. Animal bones were absent from the area of the

rectangular building but were found in thick deposits of ash and small trenches dug next

to the round building on the hill summit. Of the bones that could be identified (71.5% of

the total), 59.8% were bovine, 35.9% pertained to goats or sheep, and the remaining 4.2%

to deer and swine.361 The butchering marks and oxidation from fire strongly correspond

to ritualized killing and burnt sacrifice and a clay altar found on the slope between the

two buildings could also be related to this. Destruction layers in both the rectangular and

the round buildings date the final phases of use to no later than the first decades of the

fifth century BCE.

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358 The site report claims that the building measures 40 x 30 meters, but no other sources mention a description and no drawings were provided to certify the accuracy of this report.359 Vassallo 1999: 67-71; Veronese et al. 2006: 125.360 The majority of objects within Deposit A dated to the late seventh and sixth centuries BCE (Vassallo 1999: 46-51).361 Di Rosa 1999: 256

The nearby site of Monte Iato (25) also took off during the latter half of the sixth

century BCE. The famous “temple of Aphrodite,” an elongated (17.8 x 7.25 m.) bipartite

building, was the most significant structure to be built and includes a number of material

correlates that date to the mid- and late sixth century BCE.362 The building included two

rooms, a main room subdivided by two wooden columns and a smaller one on the

backside. One entered the building on the eastern side, from which point two large, ashlar

open-air altars could be seen in front of the building. The Archaic materials from this

building are very few, mostly because the area was continually visited up through the

Classical and Hellenistic periods. As a result, the finds of an Ionic B2 cup underneath the

altar and a small deposit made in the back room of the structure have been especially

important. The latter deposit seems to have been made at the very end of the sixth century

BCE, or possibly at the beginning of the fifth century. It was composed almost

exclusively of drinking wares: two Attic kylikes, an Athenian skyphos, four Corinthian

kotylai and a group of painted indigenous carinated bowls/cups. The materials ranged in

date from the middle to the end of the sixth century BCE. In the area in front of the

structure, the excavators found a vast amount of ash and animal bones, all deposited in

pits, many in association with lamps. The majority of the lamps dated to the fourth

century BCE-- only one could be assigned to the sixth century-- but at least part of the

other vessels and bones seem Archaic. More buildings from Monte Iato seem to have

gone up at the settlement shortly thereafter and one in particular is thought to have had

some of the same qualities as the large "temple of Aphrodite," particularly in its plan and

the numerous drinking vessels found in and around it.363

Material correlates are attested at Segesta (21) in the Contrada Mango area as

well, starting around 550 BCE.364 A temenos wall demarcated this sanctuary from the rest

of the Monte Barbaro settlement and enclosed two large Doric buildings, known

primarily through foundation walls and architectural fragments. Vincenzo Tusa believes

that rituals occurred in the open space of the temenos, but the lack of publication makes it

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362 Isler 1984: 11-22, 62-63; 1991.363 Isler 2003: 829.364 S. Tusa 1983: 308.

difficult to interpret what such rituals entailed.365 The oldest occupation layer contained

some cooking pot fragments, a large bowl and a variety of other local pots dating

between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE, along with traces of ash and small carbon

pieces. But the rest of the finds from the sanctuary are a puzzle since the earliest

excavations reported a “complete absence of Greek pottery” and the presence of incised

and painted local wares while the later ones used at least three Greek vessels to date the

stratigraphic sequence of the sanctuary.366 Despite the mixed reports, the general

presentation of the materials was primarily one of jugs, dippers, skyphoi, and cooking

pots. A later study of the field notebooks from the 1950s rather significantly expanded the

scholarly picture of the finds, however. Concetta Antonella Di Noto presented a number

of bronze objects that came from inside the southern tract of the large perimeter wall of

the sanctuary. The notebooks listed spear points, a bronze laminè belt, buttons, bronze

plaques, iron nails, breast disks, and other objects, including a “bronze-leaf lance” about

110 mm long and 65 mm wide decorated with vertical lines and concentric circles at the

hilt.367 Another thirty spear points and some bronze hair-spirals were also found inside a

series of storage boxes. The chronology for these objects, however, has not been assessed

except for the fact that they were dedicated some time between the first half of the sixth

century and the end of the fifth century BCE.

In addition to the activity at Contrada Mango, dedications continued to be carried

out in the Grotta Vanella area. De la Genière recorded more than 100 inscribed vessels or

fragments, many of which are probable Elymian dedications (made with Greek

characters) that seem to confirm the existence of a sanctuary in the Grotta Vanella area at

least by the end of the sixth- or beginning of the fifth century BCE.368 Biondi showed that

lekythoi and kylikes were the commonest inscribed items and argued that many of the

inscriptions seemed to include words in the dative case, a practice that seems to

correspond to Greek votive formulae.369 Other sixth-century finds supported this

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365 V. Tusa 1957: 86; Ibid. 1983: 308.366 Compare, for example, V. Tusa 1957: 86-87 and V. Tusa 1961: 35.367 Di Noto 1997. The lance is particularly badly preserved now, but its original condition was described thus in the notebooks.368 De la Genière 1988: 312-13; Ibid 1997: 1029.369 Biondi 1997: 150-51.

conclusion, particularly those of a bronze warrior statuette, ivory and bronze objects,

terracotta figurines, miniature “amulet” axes, and a vast amount of pottery, particularly of

cups and kraters.370

The finds at Segesta can also be seen in context with the recent excavations at

Montagnola di Marineo (27). Although the site has not been fully published, Francesca

Spatafora related a particularly interesting discovery in 2000.371 Excavations at the site

came down to a floor layer, which was either open to the elements or whose associated

buildings have since disappeared. A small, linear stone structure interpreted as an altar

was found on this level, next to which had been placed three bronze helmets and two

shin-greaves. A jug containing the remains of at least two ovo-caprine individuals (aged

less than three months) was placed directly beside the altar and a large cooking pot was

deposited inside a trench. A mass of late sixth-century vessels lay next to the helmets, the

majority of which were geometric-painted hydriae and amphorae, as well as jars (ollae)

and large and shallow bowls.372 Next to the armor was also a “sort of large bronze

borchia, perhaps the l’umbone of a small leather shield,” and some fragments of an iron

object that could either relate to horse-riding equipment or could be parts used to support

a grill. Animal bones were spread all over the surface of an area to the south, as well as a

number of local and colonial vessels. Spatafora concluded that, “The circumstances of the

discovery and the mode of deposition with the objects seem, without a doubt, to indicate

the presence of a sacred place, even if interpreting them variously and differently as

deposits of weapons does not conform to the context of the place.”373

Other sites with indications of sacred material correlates include Entella (19),

Poggioreale (18), and Monte Vecchia (near Corleone, 17), but the finds are largely the

result of sporadic discoveries. The isolated find of a sculpted stele during survey work

perhaps indicates the presence of a “Herakles cult” at Entella and an archaic epigraph,

also to Herakles and found three kilometers to the south of Poggioreale, has led scholars

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370 De la Genière 1988: 314-16; 1997: 1031.371 Spatafora 1996: 164; 2000: 905-908.372 Ibid.: 907.373 Ibid.: 909. “Le circostanze del ritrovamento e le modalità di deposizione degli oggetti sembrano senza dubbio indicare la presenza di un luogo sacro, seppur variamente e diversamente interpretabile trattandosi di deposizioni di armi non conformi al contesto del luogo.”

to postulate a Herakles sanctuary somewhere along the banks of the Belice river,

although no structures have so far been attested.374 A building excavated at Poggioreale

itself has been described as “sacred,” but has never been fully published;375 more

convincing correlates for religious activity at Poggioreale are the Archaic “female with

polos” statuette and the fragments of a terracotta altar.376 A public or sacred structure has

also been located at Monte Vecchia but is still under excavation.377 More revelations are

likely in regard to new sacred areas for west Sicily, particularly at sites like Montagna dei

Cavalli (40), Mura Pregne, and Monte d’Oro (26) where ongoing surveys have identified

the consistent presence of sixth century BCE material from at least 36 sites.378

The period of 550-500 BCE is far richer in terms of material correlates than earlier

periods and to some extent the later periods as well. Most of the earlier Archaic sites

remained in use at least up to about 525 BCE, seven being significantly renovated, and

seventeen new complexes were built, bringing the total number to 33, with at least 47

separate structures among them. The embellishment of structures with attention-focusing

devices (e.g. altars, benches, a staircase) and greater investment of wealth in both the

architecture, decoration, and some of the votive assemblages make these new areas

arresting in the archaeological record. The appearance of these buildings grew more

specialized, via a shift towards increasingly building only rectilinear, bi- or tri-partite

buildings. Curvilinear buildings ceased to be built after 550 BCE, and many of the older

hut-shrines started to go out of use after 525 BCE. The new buildings and complexes

increasingly used both their size and location--sometimes even being attached to agora-

like open spaces-- to be “public monuments.” The Contrada Mango sanctuary, for

example, was located on the main route between the settlement and cemetery of Segesta,

and would have constituted the most “public” space prior to the establishment of the

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374 Manni Piraino 1973: 163-64.375 Falsone (1990: 306-308) does describe the architectural plan of the building (several rooms surrounding a courtyard with two oval platforms outside of the building to the south). 376 Falsone and Leonard 1980-81: 948-52; Spatafora 1996: 164, 1997.377 Spatafora 1997: 1282.378 Vassallo (2000) gives notices for nearly all of these sites, but none either been extensively excavated or published in any detail.

Segestan agora in the early fifth century BCE. It was also huge, reaching 1568 square

meters in area and rivaling contemporary Greek sanctuaries at Himera, Selinus, and

Akragas, as did the acropolis complex at Monte Saraceno. Slightly smaller complexes,

such as those at Sabucina, Caltabellotta, and Monte Polizzo may have had similar

aspirations. The majority of indigenous shrines (24) during this period were

“monumental” in comparison to their immediate surroundings and involved higher levels

of wealth through their construction and decoration, but were generally still relatively

modest;379 the square area of the oikos-style “Aphrodite temple” at Monte Iato, for

example, was just twice the size of the largest round buildings at Colle Madore and

Montagnoli.380

The correlates also correspond to particular religious practices, making the higher

frequency of their appearance causally tied to intensifications in practices like drinking,

feasting, purification, and sacrifice. Specialized facilities and equipment, including lamps,

loomweights, storage containers, hearths, and others were present in 33 cases. Much of

the specialized "equipment" most likely had targeted uses as well. Lamps, attested at

seven sites, certainly gave light, but could have also been used to enhance other activities;

they also imply that certain activities occurred at night.381 Interesting too is the presence

of a balsarium or incense burner at Monte Raffe. Wine wares continued to feature in the

dedicatory assemblages and in the general finds, again demonstrating the likely frequent

use of alcoholic beverages in these areas.

Dedications increased during this period. Cups again dominate the finds, making

up a third of the total finds, while other liquid-related vessels (krater-types, amphorae,

and oinochoai) make up 30% and non-liquid related vessels make up another 15%. The

remaining 15% of the finds consists of figurines, lamps, ornaments, and metal tools.

There is an interesting pattern in which denser concentrations of specific objects or

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379 As with the early Archaic complex at Montagnoli, which Castellana (2000: 268) has argued was a meeting-places for scattered communities and served “come luogo politico e religioso di un gruppo elitario appartenente a quelle popolazioni locali che vivevano in questa zona della basso bacino della Belice.”380 The temple at Monte Iato measured 127 sq. meters while the round buildings range between 50 and 80 square meters (Isler 1984:15).381 Isler (1996: 9) thinks this is the case at Monte Iato at the Temple of Aphrodite, at least by the mid-4th century BCE.

vessels are found at some sites. The 72 loomweights at Monte Saraceno are unparalleled,

for example, although loomweights in general seem to be more visible dedications during

this time. Likewise, at Licata there seems to be a preference for dedicating pyxides while

at Sabucina the lekythos becomes a more popular dedication. It is difficult to make any

sense out of why these patterns happen, but it seems important that a widespread

dedicatory protocol coexisted alongside very locally-specific trends.

The greater evidence for metal offerings can perhaps be seen in a similar way.

Between 550 and 500 BCE, metals were found at ten sites, the richest of which were in

western Sicily. While the dedications have nothing in comparison to the quantity and

quality of metal votives in Aegean Greek sanctuaries, their economic and symbolic value

seems to exceed anything found in other indigenous shrines. The objects themselves also

express a symbolic focus on war or violence: the armor dedicated at Montagnola di

Marineo is rather exceptional but perhaps should be seen in context with "violent" objects

like the arrow and spear points, lance blades, laminate belts and breast disks found at

Segesta and Colle Madore. This weight on warrior- or violence-related items in the west

is thrown into relief by the lack of religious elements commonly found at other

indigenous sites in Sicily. West Sicilian sacred assemblages, for example, seem to be

missing the ubiquitous female figurines of eastern Sicily; none, in fact, have been found

west of Poggioreale that date to this period.382

One of the other religious correlates that is particularly well documented for this

period is that of animal sacrifice. The installation of altars itself points to an increase in

the number of attention-focusing devices, but the emphasis on altars specifically is

significant, especially when seen in parallel with the number of faunal remains. Thirteen

new altars are documented for this time, each of them found in context with animal

bones. In some cases, there seems to be a concerted effort to symbolically capture the

sacrificial act as well. At Monte Saraceno, for example, the discovery of a local skyphos

(dating, however, between 500-480 BCE), with a curved iron blade inside it evokes the

material context and memory of the sacrificial ritual. And at Monte Polizzo, the only

metal object that was found around the acropolis hut-shrine was an iron cleaver, buried

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382 A few female figurines do come from Segesta, but all have been dated to the fifth century BCE.

downslope from the altar. The iconography on some of the portable arulae sometimes

depicts sacrificial ceremonies or wrestling animals on the carved sides, further attesting

to the increased actual and symbolic importance of animals and their sacrifice in these

contexts. The repetition of symbols is a bit more difficult to pin down for the contexts of

the later sixth century BCE. Female figurines were popular in the assemblages for sites

mostly in the east half of the study area, while the west half emphasized “war” symbols,

as I mentioned above. The frequency of animal-related objects rose more diffusely, but in

lesser overall counts; animal-related objects are found in small quantities (three or less) at

a minimum of 12 sites.

Lastly, a concern with cleanliness or pollution is also more evident in the material

dating between 550 and 500 BCE, although it still does not seem to have been a

widespread feature of religious spaces at the time. Louteria were newly installed at five

different complexes, all save one in the eastern part of the study area.

In many ways, the evidence for indigenous Sicilian religious activity peaks

between 550 and 500 BCE. A series of new sites quickly expanded and urbanized around

the mid-sixth century and many sites that had been in use since the seventh century

stayed in use up until about the end of the sixth century. Some, however, like Monte

Polizzo, Colle Madore, and Polizzello were already starting to wind down by 525 BCE

and overall the rapid expansion that began around 550 BCE was short-lived. The growth

of the mid- and latter half of the sixth century was balanced by an early retraction of

some sites and, by the middle of the fifth century BCE, their abandonment or destruction.

500 to 450 BCE

The first half of the fifth century BCE saw both the growth of some sites and

destruction of a number of others in the study area. The extensive work at Monte

Saraceno has shown that although the buildings of the late seventh and early sixth century

continued to be used, things came to a bit of a grinding halt during the second quarter of

the fifth century BCE. At the time of the most recent site reports, no religious activity

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seems to date past 480/70 BCE.383 Moreover, excavation work showed that around this

same time, the lower terraces were abandoned while the acropolis was reorganized and

refortified. The upper parts of the site only came to be more fully reoccupied after 350

BCE.

Sabucina underwent some slight modifications prior to the entire site’s destruction

c. 450 BCE. Votive dedication and sacrifice continued at Sector A (the hut-shrine

complex) with minor structural changes occuring in the reflooring of the sixth-century

rectangular building and the addition of Silenic antefixes to either it or the hut-shrine.384

A new building decorated with palm acroteria, but of unclear function, was built in the

western part of the enclosed space and two new altars (one rectangular, one round) were

installed on the western side of the earlier rectangular building. De Miro described the

rectangular altar as a type of bothros, based on the presence of a channel and basin that

were presumably used for the flushing and collection of sacrificial liquids.385

Dedications also continued to be made in all of the earlier buildings of Sabucina,

particularly in the rock-cut rooms A and B and the open space in Sector B. Here, evidence

for the dedication and/or use of lamps was particularly rich for the first half of the fifth

century BCE.386 Also prominent were a number of Greek and colonial lekythoi, found in

almost equal measure to the more customary cups, and numerous fifth-century

Akragantine coins. An interesting ensemble of materials was found in an early fifth-

century deposit in the northwest corner of the rectangular shrine, including an indigenous

thymiaterion (a type of pedestal basin that is most similar to indigenous Iron Age vessels

found at Pantalica), two colonial aryballic lekythoi, and two iron spear points.

Less is known in regards to the occupational histories and settlement layouts of

the sites surrounding Sabucina. Several reconnaissance projects have been carried out at

Monte Capodarso (38), the twin rock outcrop across the valley from Sabucina, but little

can be said about the site with certainty. Porous as the picture is, it does seem that some

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383 De Miro et al. 1996; Calderone 1999: 206.384 Panvini 1993-94: 799-800.385 De Miro 1980-81: 564.386 Guzzone 2006: 42-43.

type of religious activity began there after 500 BCE. A deposit with 10 female figurines

(dating c. 500 BCE), “Greek-type votives" (not specified), and a fragment of a large

statue (perhaps a cult-statue?) found outside the wall indicate the presence of one or more

sanctuaries, although structures are not yet known. Tobias Fischer Hansen and others

have inferred the presence of a Demeter sanctuary somewhere on the urban site based on

the typology of the terracottas.387 The fifth-century phases at Caltanissetta (5) are equally

lacuna-filled. Following the end of the sixth century BCE, there is no trace of life at the

former settlement center on the Redentore hill. There are, however, indications of fifth-

century activity in the area of modern cemetery, perhaps indicating a shift in the

community’s center. The find of a Geloan-type gorgon antefix has led some scholars to

cite a Greek-type temple in that part of the Caltanissetta territory from the first half of the

fifth century.388

Terravecchia di Cuti (39) was originally an indigenous settlement that many

scholars have argued was included in the Geloan sphere of influence by 550 BCE and the

Akragantine by the later sixth century. Most of the city seems to date between 550 and

500 BCE, but the extraurban sanctuary-area dates to the fifth-century BCE, based on a

few structural remains and a very rich deposit of fifth-century BCE votive terracottas.

The objects have close parallels at Akragas, Gela, and Camarina, and reflect typology

typical of the Archaic and Classical periods: they are primarily female figures, some

seated, some standing, and some offering a piglet. In addition to the figurines,

excavations in 1982 also uncovered several fragments of life-size or larger than life-size

statues (at least one of which was a female figure) that several authors have argued

demonstrate “the fully Greek character of the sanctuary” in strong contrast to the

culturally-mixed settlement.389 Whatever the character of the sanctuary, the wealth of the

deposit, the variety of the figured types and the presence of large statues certainly seem to

indicate the popularity of the area and the concentration of ritualistic activities there

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387 Fischer Hansen 2002: 164.388 Orlandini 1962: 109.389 Bonacasa 1980-81: 863-65; Epifanio and Vassallo 1984-85: 651-53; Epifanio Vanni 1988-89: 670-73.

throughout the course of the fifth century BCE.390

Practices seem to also have continued at both the Casalicchio (35) and Mollarella

(36) sanctuaries near Licata, and were newly installed at an area between the two heights

of the Casalicchio hills. The fifth-century BCE dedications resembled earlier Archaic

materials (masks, busts, and female and offertory-type figurines), and featured various

types of pottery. In addition to this material, a fifth-century marble “Pergamum-goddess”

statue was discovered in the area of the Old Cemetery; its context and purpose has not

been defined.391

The site of Balate-Marianapoli (11) (to which the Iron Age Valle Oscura

necropolis was attached) has also produced fifth-century BCE material that reflects the

archaeological correlates of religion. Excavations revealed an enclosure wall on the

acropolis, inside of which was a structure decorated with gorgon antefixes. Several

portable altars were found in the fifth-century layers in association with the building.

Most intriguing was the find of two obelisk stelae with dedicatory inscriptions in Greek

characters erected on a type of natural podium in the northwest corner of the enclosed

area; the excavators regained a third stele directly outside the wall.392 The inscriptions on

the first two stelai were only partially legible, having been damaged by calcium build-up

and corrosion. The stele with a square base seems to have two personal names on two

lines of text while the second stele has five lines in similar characters and clearly reads

LYKYMNIOI.393

Fifth-century phases seem to be starkly absent from many of the settlements

further to west, either on account of their destruction and/or abandonment or simply that

excavations have not revealed fifth-century material. On either account, the resulting

image of western Sicily in the fifth century is one in which the abandonment of once-

flourishing sixth-century sites and the rapid growth of some new and certain older sites

go hand-in-hand. A destruction layer at Colle Madore (32), for example, dates the final

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390 Epifanio Vanni and Vassalo 1984-85: 653.391 Fiorentini 1980-81: 583-84.392 Fiorentini 1980-81: 592-93.393 A definitive reading still has not been carried out since the editors are still trying to extract other lines of the text.

phases of the site to the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth century BCE and there is

a drastic reduction in the quantity of post-late Archaic surface finds in the overall

vicinity.394 Between 500 and 450 BCE, even more sites, including Montagna dei Cavalli

(40), Monte d’Oro (26), Cassaro di Castronuovo (28), Poggioreale (18), Montagnola di

Marineo (27), and Monte Maranfusa (24), were abandoned. At the same time, however,

new sites arose (e.g. Vaccarizzo 2 (41)) while some pre-existing settlements such as

Badessa 1 (42), Cozzo Malacarne (43), Monte Iato (25) and, most famously, Eryx (20)

and Segesta (21) flourished. With other sites it is simply difficult to determine what

exactly was going on during the fifth century, particularly in regards to religious

activity.395 Surprisingly little is known about Entella (19) still, for example, but certain

fifth century materials seem to indicate that it continued to be inhabited. Equally puzzling

is the site of Monte Adranone. Although the revamping of the settlement and a number of

burials date to the fifth century BCE, there seems to be an almost complete lack of

information on religious or sacred structures prior to the fourth century.396

Monte Iato (25) grew somewhat, and the addition of several new structures to the

site mark a parallel growth in religious activities. One of the new areas included a

monumental oikos-style building (20 x 7 m.) in the southwestern part of the agora that

Isler has dated to 480/470 BCE (thus predating the civic restructuring of site in the fourth

century BCE).397 Painted indigenous materials, Attic and Iato K 480 kylikes, and a bone

needle were found inside on the floor level, while fragments of phialai and a small bronze

animal figurine were found along the southern exterior of the building. Conspicuously

absent is any mention of faunal remains or an altar that would have been associated with

the building.

While the growth at Monte Iato was significant, it must have paled in comparison

to the two archetypical Classical sites for indigenous western Sicily, Segesta (21) and

Eryx (20). Unfortunately, even with the complementary literary record, knowledge of

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394 Vassallo 1999: 73-74.395Lack of evidence puts the M. Vecchia, Contrada Noce, Cozzo Mususino, Mura Pregne, Entella, Caravedda, Bagnitelle S. Antonino and Chiappetta 2 (all in Palermo province) into this category.396 De Miro 1975: 123-24; V. Tusa and De Miro 1983: 186-99; Moscati 1986: 130-35.397 Isler 1988-89: 625-26; 1999: 13-16; Although the visible remains date to the fourth century BCE, they are superimposed over a structure that goes back to the mid-fifth century BCE.

both sites, particularly in regard to their religious character, is rather limited. The

constraints on excavation at Eryx have rendered the fifth-century religious activity largely

inaccessible while at Segesta our knowledge of new developments in religious activity

comes almost entirely from Herodotus.398 Herodotus (V.47.1-2) states that during the

first half of the fifth century BCE, the Segestans dedicated a heroön to Philip, son of

Butacide. According to Herodotus, Philip was a soldier from the Greek colony of Kroton

in southern Italy who had joined the Spartan colonizer Dorieus in an expedition to found

a new settlement in western Sicily. The mission failed rather spectacularly after the

Elymians and Phoenicians joined hands to fight and expel the Greek contingent.

Following this event, the Segestans then dedicated a heroön to the one of their former

adversaries, Philip. The initiative by a non-Greek community to heroize a particular

individual is rather strange in itself (it is unattested elsewhere in Sicily) and a heroic cult

attributed to a foreigner, particular a foreigner whom one fought against, is enigmatic,

particularly when there is not really any comparative material against which to judge it.

Frisone has noted that, unlike most of the legends associated with hero cults, the story of

Philip does not conform to the typical topos of “enemy/adversary-oracle-cult” for heroes

(unless one warps the original foundation oracle given to Dorieus for the settlement), nor

does Philip take on the mantle of the avenging hero as in Fontenrose's model of heroes.399

Given such circumstances, the presence of a heroic cult and heroön is especially odd at

Segesta. Archaeologically, we know nothing of the physical structure or the practices

carried out there, although the recovery of a large stele- or altar-type stone in the area of

the classical and Hellenistic necropolis has been tentatively suggested as an element from

the heroön. In short, while something “religious” certainly seems to have been happening

in order to attract such commentary, Herodotus’ account of the “heroön” at Segesta may

say more about how his informants translated Segestan religious practices into Greek

terms than about the worship itself.

Central-western Sicily was a highly dynamic area in the first half of the fifth

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398 The Contrada Mango sanctuary and the Grotta Vanella area did remain in use, but little else is known about them than what has already been stated for the earlier sixth-century phases.399 Frisone 2000: 501; Fontenrose 1968.

century BCE. At the sites that manage to survive, there was a notable increase in the

architectural investiture for religious buildings and particular changes in religious

practice, including the new use of writing as a means of religious expression, the increase

in votive dedication, and a growing preference towards bovine species in animal sacrifice

(documented for the fifth-century phase at Monte Iato and Vaccarizo 1). In a very few

examples, cult statues also began to be used, a significant change from the past.

Terracotta statuettes, particularly of the female standing or seated figure or the

“offertory”-suppliant, proliferated and at some sanctuaries made up over 50% of all the

dedicated materials that have been found. Offerings of lekythoi rose significantly (from

five lekythoi out of the entirety of sites from 700-500 BCE, to 20 found at just two sites,

and over 50 total after 500) too. Finally, the finds of burnt animal bones and the

construction of new sacrificial altars show that animal sacrifice still constituted a highly

important practice in indigenous Sicilian religion, even though the details of the faunal

remains are unclear for the fifth century.

The religious activities of these sites, however, are overshadowed—necessarily—

by the broader political and demographic changes of the times. By 450 BCE, twelve of

the old religious centers had gone out of use, while seven new structures were built at

other sites and other Archaic sanctuaries (14) continued to be visited. The historical

sources have traditionally given a number of different explanations for the demographic

and cultural changes of the fifth-century BCE, ranging from a growing Carthaginian

effort to extend their territorial control, to a heightened Akragantine interest in the interior

and northern part of Sicily, to a mounting “indigenous unrest” at Greek efforts to gain

more power. In reference to western Sicily, Stefano Vassallo argued that two-thirds of the

indigenous sites were abandoned between 550-450 and attributed this contraction to

population decline that set in after the Battle of Himera destabilized communication and

economic networks in western Sicily.400 Others have critiqued this argument, noting that

settlement abandonment starts significantly earlier than the standard date for the battle.401

Instead, they suggest that the changes in indigenous settlement patterns were probably

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400 Vassallo 2000: 993-99.401 Cf. Morris et al. 2004.

driven by a type of synoikism that was similar to what was happening in eastern Sicily

and which was punctuated by the revolt of Ducetius in 460/50 BCE.

The growth and decline of certain religious centers and practices seem to reflect

these changes and I think that the argument can be made that religion was increasingly

becoming one of the major theaters for organizing, expressing, and addressing the social,

political, and cultural changes of fifth-century Sicily. I will return to this topic in the

conclusions of this chapter.

450-400 BCE

The sites of the Salso-Himera valley are better documented for the later fifth-

century, particularly when compared to the rest of the sites in Sicily. At Gibil Gabel (10),

the sacred building that Adamesteanu identified near the city wall went out of use around

the middle of the fifth-century BCE. However, two of the buildings inside the city whose

purposes were never defined beyond “perhaps public” indicate that the site was still

occupied during the fifth century; these buildings underwent a series of modifications and

were found with cups, amphorae, hydriae, and black glazed lamps that dated between 450

and 400 BCE. Sabucina (3) was widely destroyed around 450 BCE, probably in relation

to the revolts of Ducetius, and most of the site was subsequently abandoned. But, there

seems to have been a temporary reprisal of activity at the religious complex of Sector A.

While the circular and rectangular altars remained in use, the floor of the old rectangular

building was re-covered and its semi-circular platform reintegrated into a low bench that

ran along the north side of the building. A votive deposit was dug in the northwest corner

of the building, perhaps as a “re-foundation” deposit. The deposit held a large amount of

carbon and ash, as well as a mass of piglet jaws, one of which was still attached to some

bronze sheeting. Other objects in the deposit included bronze rings, bronze and iron

fibulae, a necklace made out of knuckle-bones, and a lamp. Outside of the rectangular

building, the two open-air rooms (Rooms A and B) seem to have remained in use as well,

perhaps as storage rooms for earlier votive dedications. Materials found in the later fifth-

century layers closely resemble those from the earlier levels: abundant ceramic finds,

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particularly of kylikes, miniature lekythoi and lamps along with numerous coins (mostly

from Akragas). An important new element in the complex was a covered courtyard with

“ritual ovens” located between the older rectangular and hut-shrine structures. The

inclusion of this courtyard and the character of some of the materials led the excavators

to attribute a chthonic nature to the practices of the complex by the late fifth century

BCE.402 The complex was decidedly destroyed at some point in the fourth century BCE.

A mid-fifth-century destruction also ravaged the site of Vassallaggi (4), although

the sanctuary area was immediately reconstructed. Unfortunately, there have been no

clear reports on the material that dates to the post-450 BCE phase. Better information

comes from Terravecchia di Cuti (39). Here, there are no signs of the damage that

affected Sabucina and Vassallaggi. At the extra-urban sanctuary, votive dedications

continued, as documented by the rich deposits containing terracotta statuettes, miniature

vessels and lekythoi that date between 450 and 400 BCE. The use of writing also became

a more widespread form of ritual expression at the site as graffiti employing mixed and

native onomastica were inscribed on pottery and loomweights and found in both the

domestic and sanctuary areas.403 One fragment may comprise a dedication to the

Charites, but even if the beneficiary of the dedication was not one or all of the Graces, the

practice of dedicating objects with written inscriptions is a rather significant ritual

development and may be part of a larger pattern among Sicilian communities during the

later fifth century. The final period of use for the building seems to be around 400 BCE.

The inclination of the collapse layer indicates a tectonic movement as the cause for the

collapse of the building at some point beyond the end of the fifth century BCE.

A mid-fifth century building at nearby Cozzo Mususino (44) may also have had a

religious role.404 The building, of notable size, was on the western end of an artificial

terrace, the construction of which seems to have been a rather serious undertaking in

order to extend the level of the terrace. There, excavators found an abundance of

architectural elements (e.g. solenes, kalypters hegemones, an architrave, roof tiles, and

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402 De Miro 1988.403 SEG 27: 656-57; IGDS no. 175 a-b; Arena 1992: 111-16.404 Epifanio 1982: 61-68.

columns) and vessels. Nothing else has been reported on the building and no solid

interpretation of the structure has been put forward yet. The more securely religious

buildings at Licata (35, 36) continued to be used throughout the fifth century, as the

dedications of vessels and terracotta figurines dating to 450-400 testify. A similar lifespan

can be given to both the “staircase” and “basilica” sacred areas at Monte Raffe (12).405

In the western part of Sicily, the end result of the ebb and flow of settlements

during the first half of the fifth century was a smaller number of occupied sites up until at

least the middle of the fourth century BCE. In some cases, like that of Caltabellotta (15),

although the political and social disruptions of the early fifth century had left it largely

unscathed, the upheavals of the later fifth century did not. Up until around 425 BCE,

votive dedications of statuettes, evidence for ablutions, and the presence of weaving

implements are still attested at the large, tripartite sixth-century sacellum at Caltabellotta.

By the end of the fifth-century, however, the building was destroyed and then abandoned.

Slightly later, a new, bipartite building was built in the area to the east of the old

structure.

In other cases, like that of Monte Iato (25), there are no signs of destruction in the

fifth-century BCE, although the evidence for site occupation overall does seem to

decrease.406 Most of the Archaic and Classical deposits around the “Aphrodite temple”

have not been conserved,407 but among them were a few remains of statuettes, including a

fragmentary bust displaying a chioma and part of a polos. It is certain that the religious

practices continued at the temple and a fair number of lamps and burnt animal (bovine,

goats, and piglets) remains have been dated to the later fifth century BCE. Isler has

argued that at least some of the rituals around the altar were conducted at night based on

the number of lamps found around the altar. Outside of the Aphrodite temple area, mid-

to late-fifth-century remains--including Greek, Greek-colonial, and indigenous pottery--

have also been recovered from the agora temple.

Religious practices must have continued at the Contrada Mango and Grotta

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405 Griffo 1957: 2853; La Rosa 1979: 92.406 Vassallo 2000: 988; Isler 2003.407 The lack of preservation is due to the substantial Hellenistic rebuilding that took place across the site.

Vanella sacred areas (and presumably at the Butacide heroön as well) of Segesta (21)

after 450 BCE, but archaeologically their activities are eclipsed by the construction of the

massive Doric temple just outside the city wall on the slope of Monte Barbaro. The

structure is a Doric peripteral temple (measuring 23 x 58 m. or 1334 sq. m) with a

peristyle of fourteen unfluted columns on the long sides and six on the short sides and

was decorated with the standard architectural elements- an elevated stylobate, columns

with sculpted capitals, and an architrave with alternating spaces for triglyphs and

metopes. The stone seems to have come primarily from a geological matrix at Alcamo,

about 15 kilometers away from the temple site. The temple appears to be incomplete,

since it never received a cella (and, as the cuts in the foundation block revealed, a cella

certainly seems to have been intended for the building). Even incomplete, however, it

was a massive construction that invested a significant amount of resources in its

completion: most architectural historians believe it to be one of the finest examples of

Doric architecture ever built.408

In comparison to the vast attention given to the architectural history of the temple,

very little is known about the religious activities carried out in its precinct. For example,

there has been no mention of the presence or absence of an altar or other materials that

have been found in the area (although anything that was present was very likely taken

from the site long ago), at least to my knowledge. We can make some guesses, however,

by patching together disparate pieces of evidence. Cicero (2 Verr. IV.32.71-33.83)

remarks, for example, that after the sack of Carthage in 146 BCE, Rome returned various

stolen treasures to Segesta, the most prominent item being an ancient bronze statue of

Diana, the Roman version of Artemis, which, he said, the Segestans revered above all

else.409 Giuliano, examining Cicero’s description in tandem with Roman Republican

numismatic iconography, inferred that the statue was cast sometime between 500 and 480

BCE.410 If the chronology is correct, then the emphasis on an Artemis-type deity at

Segesta (at least, as seen from the Greco-Roman perspective) could be related to more

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408 Cf. Mertens 1984. 409 See also Gallo 1992: 318.410 Giuliano 1953: 51-52; see also Galinsky (1969: 68) for a more elaborated argument.

archaic practices from other indigenous settlements. Morris has argued, for example, that

the composite evidence for Segesta worshipping a “deer goddess” like Artemis

corresponds to the same moment that the round hut shrine at Monte Polizzo (Building

A1) went out of use.411 Deer sacrifice and rituals involving their antlers are

overwhelmingly documented at sixth-century Monte Polizzo and figured in the practices

of other Archaic indigenous sites as well. It may thus be a) that the Segestan “Artemis” in

the fifth century was the same indigenous goddess from earlier periods; b) that Segestan

worshippers thought their goddess was basically the same as the Greeks’; and c) that they

then ‘translated’ it as such to Greek and Roman visitors. If so, this would also help

explain why Artemis is such a dominant part of the Classical and Hellenistic tradition

related to Segesta.

Thucydides’ account of the assembly held in Athens prior to the Sicilian

expedition provides, moreover, significant contextualizing information for the temple at

Segesta.412 Thucydides says that the Athenians voted in support of the campaign at least

in part because of the reports from their envoys and the Segestan ambassadors on the

supposed abundance of wealth present in the temples. The account shows that, either for

this specific event or in general, the temples (presumably including the large Doric

temple) could serve as public treasuries and played a fundamental role in political deals.

Although the Doric temple and other references to Segestan religious sites may, in Chiara

Michelini’s words, “turn out to be too isolated and in a certain sense, marginal to

fulfilling the global picture of a city,” the evidence reinforces the idea that by the fifth

century BCE, religious sites and indigenous socio-political organization were intimately

intertwined, particularly at Segesta.413

Conclusions

Most explanations of religious change in the Western Mediterranean have

typically sought to answer how the developments conform to or disprove a Hellenization

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411 Morris 2002: 59-60.412 Thucydides VI.8 ff.413 Michelini 1997: 1151.

or a postcolonial model of cultural change. The focus on fitting the evidence to a holistic

theoretical model, however, belies the more complicated modalities of the evidence.

Without a close examination of both the “pre-colonial” evidence for indigenous religion

and of the temporal and regional nuances of the “post-colonization” data from one

closely defined area, interpretations of colonial-native interaction and of religious change

in the West both seriously risk missing the point.

Thus, at the beginning of this chapter I claimed that in order to understand the

responses of indigenous western Sicilian communities to colonial religions, we first

needed to demonstrate not only that indigenous religion changed, but also that these

changes involved something different from earlier traditions, and, moreover, that the

changes reflected the impact of colonial religion. In this chapter, I have concentrated my

discussion on the first two of these goals. By measuring the appearance of material

correlates of religion, I have shown that the religious developments of the Archaic and

early Classical period marked a significant departure from the rituals of the indigenous

Iron Age (summarized in Table 3-3). I argued that after 650 BCE indigenous Sicilians

increasingly dedicated particular places in their communities for the worship of the gods.

I showed that these places ranged from non-built, open-air spaces that were assigned for

acts of sacrifice to uniquely-shaped hut-shrines to large, monumental Doric-type temples.

The remarkable move towards specifically designated sacred areas often in strategic

locations, the incorporation of attention-focusing devices, and the investment, both in

wealth and labor, in constructing these spaces all signal a major shift in the role of

religious institutions within a community and possibly in religious ideology as well. The

evidence related to ritual practice also reveals intriguing patterns: drinking, feasting,

animal sacrifice, and votive dedication all have precedence in the ritual context of Iron

Age tombs and (a very few) structures, but their intensification and elaboration in the

Archaic and Classical periods indicate the involvement of much larger groups of people

and the integration of new forms of ritual expression.

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Summary of evidence, as related to “material correlates”

Number of sites (out of

10) 650-600

BCE


16) 600-550

BCE


33) 550-500

BCE


26) 500-450

BCE


21) 450-400

BCE

1) (Super-)natural associations 7 11 12 10 9

2) Set apart from other types of settlement space

9 14 27 21 22

3) Involving conspicuous public display

4 6 20 16 13

4) Prayer or special means of communicating with a divinity, often reflected in the iconography

0 0 3 5 5

5) Inducing/heightening of religious experience [based on alcoholic consumption]

[10] [13] [26] [20] [17]

6) Attention-focusing devices 3 11 24 11 12

7) Iconic or aniconic representations 3 5 15 13 11

8) Specialized facilities or equipment

2 3 10 6 6

9) Sacrifice is practiced 9 11 29 16 17

10) Votives may be dedicated or offered

10 14 30 20 19

11) Food and drink may be offered or consumed

10 13 31 22 17

12) Area may be rich in symbolism 3 6 9 5 8

13) A concern with cleanliness and pollution

2 2 6 3 5

Table 3-3. Summary of evidence for religious developments in central-western Sicily,

650-400 BCE.

The built spaces took on a variety of different forms and most scholars who have

studied colonial Sicily have focused on the hut-shrines. As I showed, however, hut

shrines were not the only architectural expression of religion at indigenous sites in central

western Sicily in the Archaic period. In the period between 700 and 550 BC, we know,

for certain, of twelve round or apsidal buildings from seven different sites that have

166

evidence strongly indicative of ritual activity. We also know that in that same period,

indigenous sites—including all of the sites that were building hut-shrines—also built at

least 32 large, rectangular buildings that became centers of religious practice. These

rectangular shrines have similar “material correlates” as the hut-shrines, and sometimes

notably more, particularly in the expenditure of wealth and labor in their constructive and

decorative techniques. The largest of the rectangular shrines at Monte Saraceno, for

example, was not only nearly 10 times the size of the largest contemporary hut-shrine but

was also larger than the main temples at both of the Greek colonies of Gela and Himera.

Likewise, the costs involved in building the huge sixth-century Doric temple in the

contrada Mango area at Segesta has been estimated at over 100 talents, which from an

economic perspective would have been enough to feed at least 1000 people for ten years.

Overall, in the period between 700 and 550 BC, 19 Sicilian sites built 32

rectangular buildings that we can, using the archaeological correlates, identify as

religious. If we group these with the curvilinear hut-shrines and a number of non-built but

equally ritualized areas, we raise the total of new religious structures and/or areas that

date to this period to over 50. Of these buildings, more than two-thirds have

“hypernatural” associations, all display wealth and resources in an increasingly public

way, and all use a variety of attention-focusing devices and architectural forms that help

them be distinguished from their surroundings.

These patterns in religious architecture are complemented by what happens in

religious ritual. Animal sacrifice became one of the defining features of these areas,

although like the hut-shrines and rectangular structures, people at different sites seem to

have preferred different animals. As Figure 3-4 shows, the number of altars or sacrificial

areas steadily increases over the Archaic period, peaking at about 550 to 500 BCE. It is

still difficult to identify the victims with complete precision, but the simple fact that we

have more reports that mention ash deposits and burnt animal bones among the remains is

telling. Of the faunal analyses that we do have, we can identify a few patterns in the types

of animal victims used—bovines, pigs, and sheep or goats were sacrificed most often at

most sites, but at a few sites, deer made up significant percentages of the faunal

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assemblages. At Monte Polizzo, for example, deer made up 80 percent of the animal

remains found in the central sacred area of the site, with antler, skull, and toe fragments

being particularly conspicuous in the material.

0

10

20

30

40

pre-

650 B

C

650-

600 B

C

600-

550 B

C

550-

500 B

C

500-

450 B

C

450-

400 B

C

N altars at indigenous sites in Sicily, 750-400 BCE

Num

ber

of a

ltar

s

Time period

N of altars in ritual contexts

Figure 3-4. Measurement of appearance of altars among indigenous settlements in

central-western Sicily between 750 and 400 BCE

The mounting evidence for animal sacrifice is paralleled by an increase in

materials related to wine consumption. Macrobotanical analyses at Monte Polizzo have

produced the earliest known evidence for the cultivation of the domesticated grape, vitis

vinifera, dating to 625-600 BC, perhaps indicating that wine-drinking was a much desired

activity at the site. There was also a dramatic increase in vessels used for wine drinking,

particularly cups. These materials obviously could have been used for many different

activities; libations and purifications using wine are widely attested among ancient and

modern societies and are not mutually exclusive from actual consumption. Based on the

large percentage that wine wares take up in the sacred ceramic assemblages, however, I

would argue that ritualized consumption of alcohol was a very important part of

indigenous religious activity. Most studies of indigenous ceramic assemblages have

focused on how this increase in drinking-related ceramics relates to the importation of

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Greek products. But, as recent XRF analyses on wares at Monte Polizzo have shown, this

may be a moot point: people living there were able to make pottery in both the traditional

local “grayware” style as well as in forms that are virtually indistinguishable from

contemporary Ionic drinking cups, unless they are given a chemical signature. More

remarkable, I believe, is the fact that the use of all ceramic forms related to wine

consumption, regardless of their manufacture, intensifies between 700 and 500 BC.

Furthermore, wine wares gradually came to dominate the ceramic assemblages of sacred

contexts in particular. In the sites I examined, 21 reported on ceramic types found around

the sacred areas during excavation. Among these sites, an overwhelming majority of 89.9

percent of the vessel forms were wine wares. I would argue that, collectively, this

evidence highly suggests that drinking, and drinking with Greek-style equipment in

particular, was a highly significant ritual act that was possibly also a means of enhancing

or even inducing the overall religious experience.

Votive dedication also seems to have been a practice where differences within the

material correspond to broader distinctions across sites. In the early part of my study

period, there is fairly good evidence that gifts were dedicated in certain contexts,

although again in many cases it is difficult to distinguish whether certain objects were

used for “votive” or more “utilitarian” purposes. The objects were often quite different,

however, varying between pots and mass-produced terracotta statuettes, like those found

at Monte Saraceno and Palma di Montechiaro, to very elaborate bronzes. The best

documented case we have for the dedication of bronzes comes from Polizzello, where the

floors of buildings A, B, and D were literally pock-marked with deposits of ash that held

bronze and a few silver ornaments. The deposits of bronze “warrior belts,” bowls, and

weaponry at Colle Madore and Montagnola di Marineo, both in the northwestern part of

the island, were particularly exceptional. The finds from Segesta are still ambiguous, but

metal goods were more prominent there as well, at least up through the Archaic period.

Generally speaking, though, offerings of prestige goods do not appear very widespread

among Sicilian indigenous sites. They also seem to disappear almost entirely after

525-500 BCE, either because as people abandoned their Archaic homes and moved to

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new settlements they packed up the valuables in the sanctuaries or because there was a

shift in attitude towards the deposition of “luxury” goods. In either case, it becomes

especially difficult to find objects of unambiguously votive character, especially in

regards to bronze, after 500 BCE.

In sum, with regards to religious developments in indigenous Sicily, if we

compare, for example, all of the developments in indigenous religion that start after 700

BC, whether they pertain to round buildings or rectangular buildings, bronzes or pottery,

to the sacrifice of deer or oxen, whatever we choose—the intensity, elaboration, wealth,

and sheer quantity of evidence associated with these developments far outweighs

anything seen in the Iron Age. This in itself, I argue, is a remarkable thing. The shift

towards a highly structured religious system and a harnessing of ritual activity in highly

visible and physical ways would have been a defining moment in the lives of these

communities, no matter the particular form that religious expression took. In the next

chapters, I will compare these Sicilian developments to those from a second case-study of

indigenous responses to colonization by examining Sardinian responses to Phoenician

colonial religion. In Chapter 5 and 6, I return to Sicily to discuss the contemporary

developments in Greek and Phoenician colonial religion. In the concluding chapter, I

bridge these different cultural strands together and situate the wider patterns in religious

development within the broader scope of west Mediterranean state-formation.

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Chapter 4

Religious developments in indigenous central-southwestern Sardinia, 950-400 BCE

Introduction

This chapter examines the chronological and regional developments amongst

indigenous communities in central-southwestern Sardinia. I chose to do this and to use

this particular area for several reasons. The first reason is that, as I laid out in Chapter 1,

in order to make a broader statement about the overall pattern of long-term religious

development in the west Mediterranean, we need more than one case-study. In addition,

one of the greatest efforts of postcolonial research of the past ten years has been to

deconstruct homogenous concepts such as “indigenous” and to recognize the diversity of

local colonial experiences. An important part of doing that is the examination of different

geographical areas and the different local groups-- i.e. both local indigenous and new,

local settlers-- involved in creating that experience. I chose to look at central-

southwestern Sardinia because, like Sicily, the excavation of indigenous sites has a long

history there, particularly in regards to pre-colonial occupation.

The second reason that I chose to conduct a case-study of Sardinian religious

development is that because Greeks never settled in Sardinia, the island offers the

opportunity for testing two different yet related questions. The first of these is how did

indigenous communities respond to Phoenician colonization? Since the Greek factor is

absent, Sardinia offers a somewhat unique situation for looking at the impact of

Phoenician colonization on its own terms. Tamar Hodos has rightly noted that, “The fact

that few areas are considered to have been Phoenicianized is intriguing, as the impetus

for Phoenician expansion overseas is generally held to have been for the acquisition of

raw materials, and thus implies commercial exchanges, so it may be surprising that

lasting cultural influences as a result of such exchange are not readily apparent.”414 Yet

few studies systematically test for “Phoenicianization” among indigenous communities

and even fewer try to explain why such a discrepancy should exist between the lack of

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414 Hodos 2006: 12.

Phoenicianization and, in some cases at least, the proliferation of Hellenization. In short,

most studies assume that the Phoenicians made no impact yet never explain why. If it can

be shown in this case study that there was a significant difference in the degree to which

indigenous communities integrated Phoenician religious material culture and practices in

comparison to how they integrated those of the Greek colonies, then we can pose the

hypothesis that there was a causal link between the presence of Greek colonists and

specific types of religious change. In addition, we can start to talk in more concrete terms

about whether there were in fact structural differences in the way that Greek and

Phoenician religious organization worked and the ways that either appealed to the

different societies of the west Mediterranean.

For the rest of this chapter, I present the evidence for the developments in

indigenous Sardinian religion from roughly 950 BCE up to 400 BCE. I again take the

same approach that was taken with the Sicily case-study, describing the “indigenous

setting” prior to the arrival of the Phoenicians, then following the developments into the

Archaic and Classical periods. I limit the discussion to a part of the island, the central-

southwestern quarter. The hinterland of this area is among the better-studied (and

published) parts of Sardinia. Surveys of the hinterlands of Sant’Antioco (ancient Sulcis)

and Oristano have been going on since the late nineteenth century, with varying degrees

of intensity. In the 1970s, the hinterland of Cagliari gained a much wider interest and it

seems like this will continue to be a productive area of archaeological activity in coming

years. The area thus offers a rich base of information from which samples can be drawn,

hopefully making the arguments more empirically stout, as well as more opportunities for

future research. In addition, the Phoenicians settled most densely in the coastal and

interior areas of this region; thus, if indigenous societies responded to Phoenician

colonial religion, it should be more noticeable in this part of the island than anywhere

else.

The map below shows the position of sites mentioned in the text, with the

different colored dots distinguishing indigenous (blue) and Phoenician (red) sites.

172

Figure 4-1. Distribution map of indigenous Sardinian and Phoenician-Punic sites

mentioned in the text. Phoenician-Punic sites are represented by red dots, while

indigenous sites are highlighted in blue. 1) Abbasanta-Nuraghe Losa. 2) Paulilatino-Nuraghe Lugherras-Santa Cristina. 3) Narbolia. 4) San Vero Milis-Bidda Maiore. 5) San Vero Milis-S’Uraki. 6) Cabras-San Salvatore. 7) Cabras-Cuccuru S’Arriu. 8) Othoca. 9) Cabras-San Giovanni di Sinis. 10) Tharros. 11) Basilica Santa Giusta. 12) Villaurbana-Sa Mitza-Melas. 13) Arborea. 14) Arborea-Loc. Orrì. 15) Morgongiori. 16) Ales-Zeppara. 17) Usellus. 18) Figu-San Salvatore. 19) Mogoro. 20) Santa Maria Baradilli. 21) Genoni-S. Antine. 22) Nuragus. 23) Barumini. 24) Serri-Santa Vittoria. 25) Neapolis. 26) S’Arridelli in Terralba. 27) Uras-Domu Beccia. 28) Villanovafranca. 29) Sa Domu S’Orcu. 30) Su Putzu-Orrolì. 31) Sa Grutta de Santu Giuanni. 32) Genna Maria-Villanovaforru. 33) Arbus 34) Bruncu Espis. 35) Uras-Domu Beccia 36) Sardara-Sant’Anastasia. 37) Guspini-Cugui. 38) Zairi-Gonnosfanadiga 39) Furtei. 40) Santu Teru-Monte Luna. 41) Senorbi. 42) Antas 43) Matzanni. 44) Monastir. 45) San Pietro di Siliqua. 46) Siliqua-Campana Sessa. 47) Sinnai-Bruncu Mogumu. 48) Cuccuru Nuraxi. 49) Maracalagonis. 50)Sa Domu s’Orcu. 51) Karalis. 52) Gonnesa-Seruci. 53) Monte Sirai. 54) Narcao-Punic temple. 55) Narcao. 56) Nuxis-Tattinu. 57) Monte Crobu-Corvo. 58) Corona Arrubia. 59) Pani Loriga. 60) Santadi. 61) Pirosu-Su Benatzu. 62) Sulcis. 63) Sant’Antioco-Su Niu'e Su Crobu. 64) Porto Pino. 65) Bithia. 66) Santa Margherita di Pula. 67) Nora.

The indigenous setting prior to 750-700 BCE

The indigenous setting of Iron Age nuragic Sardinia had its roots in the Bronze

Age. Unlike some other parts of the west Mediterranean, the Bronze Age is an

exceptionally visible period in Sardinia in which imposing stone tower-fortresses called

nuraghi and complex settlements came to dot the landscape, monumental communal

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tombs had their heyday, and the first use of well-sanctuaries was instituted. Many recent

general studies of Sardinian history and culture split the religious world of nuragic

Sardinia into two basic categories: funerary, most notably seen in megalithic, communal

burials, and “cultic,” primarily represented by water- or well-sanctuaries. When the

northern half of Sardinia is included, these categories can also extend to other burial

styles and to “megaron-temples.” This approach to Sardinian ritual organization,

however, overlooks the problem surrounding the chronological partition of the general

“Nuragic” period into Bronze and Iron Age phases.415 As Esmerenziana Usai noted in

1987, “Scholars have pointed out several times the non-homogenous character of the data

related to indigenous settlements that available for the different chronological levels for

the nuragic period. In the case of the early Iron Age, the gaps in documentation are

alarming because, in theory, the monumental evidence of nuragic architecture becomes

absent.”416

This question of chronology continues to be complicated by recent survey

projects that show how during the Iron Age formal nuraghi-towers, on the one hand,

diminished in significance, while on the other, more than a few sites in certain areas

continued to be inhabited.417 Thus, as Peter Van Dommelen points out, the “generic

classification as merely ‘Nuragic’ obfuscates the transformation of indigenous settlement

which took place in the 9th and 8th centuries BC.”418 Moreover, the assumption that all

sites either experienced protracted occupation or, alternatively, were abandoned during

the Iron Age glosses over regional disparities in settlement patterns and histories as well

as over the potentially dramatic discrepancies in fieldwork approaches and sampling

strategies. Finally, and most importantly for the question of understanding religious

developments, the elision of Bronze Age ritual traditions with the transformations in Iron

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415 Lilliu’s (1967: 213) classification of Nuragic periods has generally been the chronological schema used.416 Usai 1987: 243. “Per l’età dei nuraghi, a più riprese, gli studiosi hanno segnalato il carattere diomogeneo dei dati a disposizione relativi agli insediamenti indigeni, a diversi livelli cronologici. Nel caso della prima età del ferro le lacune della documentazione appaiono disarmanti perché, in linea di massima, vengono a mancare le testimonianze monumentali dell’architettura nuragica.”417 Van Dommelen 1998: 101-104; Agus 1995: 20.418 Van Dommelen 1998: 101. The label “Nuragic” is further complicated by the fact that some studies still assume that nuraghi were continuously inhabited up until the 6th or 5th century BCE when Sardinia fell under Carthaginian control.

Age religious expression into a generic presentation of “Nuragic religion” fails to tie

religious developments to significant historical processes of the time.

Several interpretive implications proceed from this problem, both for

understanding the indigenous Sardinian material on its own terms as well as for how it

relates to questions of “colonial” influence after the arrival of the Phoenicians. At the end

of the ninth and into the first half of the eighth century BCE, there was not, in the words

of Giovanni Lilliu, a cultural or historical “rivoluzione.” There was, however, a

significant turning point, most notably in the political and social relationships that

Sardinian communities had with each other.419 This shift in relationships was manifested

through various developments in Sardinian ritual contexts. This, I argue, is where an

interpretation of the “indigenous setting” needs to begin if we are to accurately evaluate

questions of subsequent colonial influence and interaction.

Tombe di Giganti, the collective, megalithic burial spaces used by local Bronze

Age elites, originally developed in the Early Bronze Age. Overall, they show a striking

consistency in form: a long rectangular room covered over by a burial mound with an

apsidal back wall and an imposing semi-circular exedral front entrance.420 All of the

tombs were “monumental”-- the average length of the tomb chamber was 15.5 meters,

but could reach up to nearly 30 meters (e.g. the Su Monte’e S’ Ape tomb near Olbia) or

be as small as 8 meters (e.g the tomb of Sedda’e Balloi Fonni near Nuoro)--, but their

monumentality was especially pronounced in the use of enormous arched stelai with

doorways carved out at the bottom, particularly for those tombs that go back to the Early

and Middle Bronze Ages.

Over 500 Giants’ tombs are documented in Sardinia, 87 of which are inside the

case study area. Unfortunately, the majority of these were disturbed either in antiquity or

more recently, and very few have been published with stratigraphic analyses. Getting a

hold of their chronology, both for their original construction and, more relevant for

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419 Lilliu 1986: 77.420 A catalouge of “tombe di giganti,” their associated finds, and their chronology is still somehow non-existent for the archaeological literature on Sardinia. Although not quantitative, the most recent classification system does distinguish between categories of the tombs, and remarks on regional discrepancies in burial style; a brief summary is provided in Lilliu 2006: 51-62.

questions of Iron Age and Archaic religious organization, how long they continued to

function as centers of ritual activity, is an ongoing struggle. Of the 87 tombs inside the

case study area, only thirteen have both signs of probable Iron Age visitation and

evidence that suggests religious-like associations. Significantly more research would be

needed to make the arguments based on the evidence from these tombs more compelling.

From the evidence that is available, however, several remarks can be made about the

ways in which the tombs respond to material correlates of religious and activity. They

were often built close to natural features (such as springs) or in locations of preexisting

cultural significance, suggesting a perception on behalf of the participants that the space

had inherently significant and/or special value. The tomb at Sa Domu’e S’Orku near

Siddi (CA), for example, stood near a spring, while another tomb in locality Pedra

Pinnada, near Arbus (OR), exploited a location that still had several of the tall, conical,

stone menhirs that date back to the Neolithic standing.421 The repetition in the plan of

these tombs shows a fully-realized style of specialized architecture, especially in the

constant presence of the exedra that formed the façade of the tomb and in the use of

particular architectural elements such as raised cornices along the exterior wall.422

Moreover, this distinctive architectural style was a monumental one, something that

worked to both set apart the tombs from the rest of the settlement and from other less

grand burial forms as well.

The particular architectural feature of the semi-circular exedra also created a sort

of forecourt in front of the tomb that, in certain cases, was lined with benches, creating

spaces where groups of people could gather, sit, and take part in various activities around

the tomb.423 These activities would have been facilitated via the use of particuar

attention-focusing devices, either through a part of the tomb architecture, such as the

porthole in the giant ‘stele-doors’ of some tombs or the cornerstones with three dentils

that would have crowned the doors entrances and which were common amongst sites in

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421 Puxeddu 1975: 113, 119.422 The raised cornice was a feature of most giants’ tombs in the northern part of the study area; a good example is the one of the tombs in the Gonnona complex near Paulilatino (Moravetti 1990: 165).423 E.g. the bench-lined exedra at Sa Domu’e S’Orku (Badas 2001: 13-15).

the southern part of the island.424 An analogous purpose can likewise be attributed to

certain symbolic or utilitarian installations that would have drawn the eyes of the

participants towards any activities taking place around them. The Neolithic menhirs at

Pedra Pinnada seem to have been the main spot where Iron Age visitors left various

ceramic objects, while at other sites, such as Sa Perdu (near Sinnai, CA) and Barrancu

Mannu (near Santadi, CA), activity concentrated around shallow wells and hearths that

were installed in the middle of the forecourts.425 The presence of these types of products--

and particularly the combination of hearths with animal bones and broken pottery-- seem

to indicate broader ritual practices related to animal sacrifice, eating and drinking in the

area of the tomb, and perhaps more ephemeral rituals of libations or liquid offerings.

The “religious” associations of these funerary contexts are made even clearer by

the movable material left behind and by their use of symbolic iconography. During the

Final Bronze and Iron Ages, various objects were left in the forecourt area of the earlier

tombs, some of which show signs of visitation extending up into the Roman period.426

Many of the materials appear to have had a votive quality, either because they were

deposited inside pits dug into the ground or because they were made out of metals or

other rare materials; weapons and bronze ornaments were among the more common

deposits.427

The integration of iconographic symbols into the physical environment seems to

work to emphasize the sacred setting of such acts of dedication. Betyls, for example, were

a common feature of giants’ tombs, especially in the northern part of the study area. They

had strong associations with the past, reaching back into what must have been a

somewhat mythic Neolithic period. In certain cases, the symbolic power of the betyl was

magnified by the addition of other iconographic elements. Carvings of two “mammelle”

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424 E.g the dentillated cornerpiece found at the Su Niu’e su Crobu tomb near Sant’Antioco (Santoni 1989: 75).425 Bittichesu 1998; Bittichesu 1989 and Castaldi 1968 provide partial catalogs for the area around Santadi. 426 E.g. the tomb at Domu Beccia produced both Punic and late Republican Roman pottery in its atrium area.427 As listed, for example, among the remains for the tombs of Su Niu’e su Corbu (Cocco 1990); Bruncu Espis (Taramelli 1927: 363), Sa Domu’e Sa Orku (Badas 2001; Lilliu 1975: 165), Ales (Zedda and Manias 2006), and Barrancu Mannu (Bittichesu 1989).

or disks were common on the surface of the betyl, which in combination with the conical

stele created what some scholars believe to be a representation of a hierogamy of the

male and female sexual organs.428

Burials in tombe di giganti declined during the ninth and early eighth century

BCE, but they did not disappear altogether. The argument has been made that this burial

style was gradually replaced by individual tombs during the eighth century, but as Gary

Webster has pointed out, the small quantity of evidence complicates that claim.429 Even

so, the appearance of individual burials (outside of those found in natural rock cavities) is

a new and important development, particularly given that armor and other valuable items

were deposited along with the individual body.430 The single male inhumation inside the

“Warrior’s Grave” of Sernorbi, for example, included a long bronze sword and bronze

sheeting, while that of the “Tomb of the Sardinian Prince” at Sardara held two figurines

of bronze archer-warriors. Individual pit-tombs were reported at Antas as well, all of

which contained beads of various materials (bronze, gold, and amber) and an especially

rich tomb that held 10 beads, a silver vessel decorated with gold, a silver pendant, a ring,

a bronze statuette of a nude male holding a lance and small grains of gold.431

The marking of an individual’s prestige through burial certainly denotes a shift,

although a somewhat subtle one, in ritual behavior among certain nuragic communities.

The real significance of this shift comes through most when seen against the grain of

broader developments in nuragic religious and ritual organization. As stated above, at

least 87 tombe di giganti have been identified in the study area of southwestern Sardinia.

But only thirteen of these had enough Iron Age evidence for it to be mentioned in the site

reports. This low number can certainly be partially attributed to a mix of visibility

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428 The betyl from the Sos Ozzastros tomb near Abbasanta (OR) is a good example. Alberto Moravetti (1984: 148) has argued that together they evoke “l’unione dei due principi fondamentali della vita, quello femminile e quello maschile, e l’amplesso divino-- dea madre e dio-toro-- che vince la morte e rigenera la vita, inserendo i defunti nel ciclo naturalistico di vita-more-rinascita, cui sono soggetti tutti gli aspetti della realtà contingente, e ripristinando in tal modo, magicamente, le energie vitali del gruppo, minacciate di annientamento dalla morte.”429 Webster 1996: 179.430 Although not all individual tombs included this material, e.g. the single male burial inside a rock-cut tomb at Is Arruttas-Cabras that was found only crude and undecorated pottery.431 Barreca 1985: 69-70; Zucca 1989: 27.

problems, ranging from rampant tomb vandalism, to periodic cleanings of early tombs

carried out in the Punic and Roman periods, to the notorious typological problems for

nuragic pottery sequences.432 However, the fact that many of these tombs were closely

associated with nuragic villages-- some in the immediate vicinity of them-- yet show no

clear indications of Iron Age usage is surely significant. This trend is thrown into relief

when the steady decline of the funerary evidence associated with tombe di giganti is

compared to the contemporaneous rise in the number of religious material correlates

found in other settings. On the whole, while tombe di giganti probably continued to play

an important role in communal memory, they were increasingly seen as inappropriate

settings for ritual attention and/or religious worship.

The development of discrete sacred areas not associated with tombs is one of the

most outstanding features of the nuragic Iron Age in Sardinia. It is true that some of these

new discrete spaces originated in the Late Bronze Age. The cave shrine at Pirosu-Su

Benatxu (near Santadi), in the southern Sulcis-Iglesies hinterland, for example, had been

in place from the Middle Bronze Age onwards, using a maze of underground corridors

and vaults to create a large chamber of stalactites complete with a stalactite-altar and a

small well. Some well-sanctuaries may have started as early as the Late Bronze Age as

well. Most of the buildings in the nuragic settlement at Sant’Anastasia near Sardara (CA)

date to the ninth and eighth century phase, but the first evidence for the well-temple

actually dates back to the Late Bronze Age. Antonio Taramelli originally reported finding

large quantities of pottery and other items in the temple’s immediate vicinity.433 But, in

the 1980s, another archaeological layer in the area around the temple that corresponded to

the first level of its atrium was exposed, which, along with the find of three copper

panelle in a later level, suggested that the building’s construction should be dated to the

Late Bronze Age (c. 13th-12th c. BCE) instead of the Iron Age.434 Elsewhere, a rich Late

and Final Bronze Age layer has been documented at the well-temple at Settimo San

Pietro-Cuccuru Nuraxi while Final Bronze Age sherds at both Santa Cristina and Santa

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432 Recently discussed in Rowland 1992.433 Taramelli 1918: 58-61.434 Costa 1984a: 136.

Vittoria suggest that the sacred wells of those sanctuaries could go back to the mid-tenth

century BCE.435

Even with these Bronze Age precedents, however, the sudden increase in their

number and their overall prominence during the ninth and eighth centuries was a radical

departure from what had existed previously. Moreover, across this group, both their

architectural form and the material assemblages associated with them grew more

canonical. The quintessential sacred place of this period was the sacred well, a category

of religious space that descended directly from earlier examples and that also included

several large sanctuary complexes that used the well as the cultic cynosure. But, other

sacred contexts, such as cave shrines and older nuragic towers retooled as shrines also

appeared during this period. In short, 33 new centers of religious activity appeared

between the ninth and eighth centuries BCE in the study area.

One of the recurring problems in studies of Sardinian religious contexts is that

they tend to be one of two extremes of either vast generality or the detailed individual

sanctuary. In the following pages, I try to find a middle ground between these two

approaches, compiling brief descriptions of various sacred sites in the case study area and

their associated Iron Age assemblages and organizing them by sub-regions within the

case study area. At the end of this section, I then turn the question around by framing the

evidence in terms of material correlates for religious activity. Later in the chapter, I return

to issues of site distribution, hierarchy, occupational history, and material culture when I

situate the developments of the ninth and eighth centuries within the longer-term

perspective of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Sulcis-Iglesiente

In comparison to the rest of the case study area, surprisingly few sacred contexts

have been reported for the Sulcis-Iglesiente hinterland up to Cagliari. Pirosu-Su Benatzu-

Santadi was mentioned earlier as one of the few non-funerary religious sites in

southwestern Sardinia in general that goes back to the (Middle) Bronze Age. The

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435 On Settimo San Pietro-Cuccuru Nuraxi, see Atzeni 1987; on Santa Vittoria, see Lilliu 1984c: 214.

evidence from the site, however, suggests an increase in religious activity during the Iron

Age. A few meters away from the stalactite altar, for instance, a hearth was set into the

floor, on top of which accumulated a 50 centimeters-thick stratified deposit of ashes and

the remains of offerings.436 Among the ex-votoes were 109 metal objects and around

1500 vessels of various forms, and the great majority of these materials (almost 90%)

date to a period that has been carbon-dated to 820-730 BCE. An urn containing a large

amount of burnt animal bones and signs of intense burning on the cave walls have been

taken as evidence of the practice of burnt sacrifice of whole animals. Other special forms

of equipment-- such as lamps, torches, and candelabra-- were necessitated by the

darkness of the cave as well.

The spring at Narcao in the area of Strumpu Bagoi di Terreseu (CA) has also

shown clear signs of cultic worship. Although mostly known for its third-century BCE

Punic sanctuary to Demeter, the area was also visited in Nuragic period, “during which

the Mother Goddess of fertility would have been venerated, while in the Punic period, the

titular divintiy of the temple came to be interpreted as Demeter, famously akin to that

very ancient Protosard and, more generically, Mediterranean, goddess.”437 It is probable

that other springs across the study region were treated similarly, but as of the present, the

Narcao spring is one of the few that have been identified and published with material

dating to the early Iron Age.

A sacred well has also been recently identified among the remains of the nuragic

village at Nuxis-Tattinu (CA). The absence of visible structures and lack of a vestibule

differentiates the well from other contemporary structures, as does the steepness of the

access-staircase and its “bottle profile.” All of the materials found inside the shrine were

ceramic and included various ollae, carinated bowls of all sizes (all of which dated to the

late tenth and ninth centuries), and some piriform vessels adorned with a hatch pattern

that are typical of eighth century nuragic pots in the area.438

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436 Lilliu 2006: 80.437 Barreca 1984b: 112. “...nel quale doveva essera venerata la Dea Madre della natura feconda, se in età punica la divinità titolare del tempio venne interpretata come Demetra, notoriamente affine a quella antichissima dea protosarda e, più genericamente, mediterranea.” A very similar process can be seen at Muravera (outside the study area, on the southeast coast, cf. Barreca 1967: 111-13; and 1985: 83).438 Lilliu 1995: 38-39.

Some scholars have thought that the site of Gonnessa-Seruci (CA), located on the

coast to the west of Carbonia, was another potentially important center during the Iron

Age, though they do not specify that it had any strict religious significance. The

indigenous hut village there dates back to the Final Bronze-Iron Age. Taramelli originally

believed that the site included a "meeting hut” comparable to Hut 80 at Barumini (see

below), but more recent scholars think this is unlikely, particularly since the site seems to

be abandoned by the beginning of the eighth century-- just at the point when “meeting

huts” were becoming more widespread.439 Given the general lack of obvious “central

places” in the Sulcis-Iglesias hinterland, however, there is a real possibility that either

Hut A or a comparable building at another site functioned as a “meeting hut.”

As I will discuss later, the overall low visibility of Iron Age and Archaic nuragic

religious contexts in this area raises the question of whether the Sulcis-Iglesies region has

been underrepresented (or presented erroneously) in accounts of the indigenous presence

in this part of Sardinia, or if there is a real issue of demographic distribution at play here.

This issue is particularly relevant when situated in the context of the rather dense

settlement of Phoenicians on this part of the southern coast, starting around the mid-

eighth century BCE.

The lower-central Campidano

Moving further north and into the hillier interior, the number of sacred areas does

start to increase. Just inland from Cagliari, the sacred well at Settimo San Pietro-Cuccuru

Nuraxi continued to be used up into the Archaic period. Pots-- mostly of ollae, askoi, and

bowls-- were particularly common and the faunal evidence is rich for layers dating to the

ninth to seventh centuries; bovines, pig, sheep, and rodents were all attested. From the

material remains, both the well-temple and the votive well seem to have been used for

votive deposits and the casting away of sacrificial meals. The first evidence for

Phoenician and other non-local pottery (Etruscan, Euboean) is attested for the end of the

eighth century.440 Conspicuously absent are any traces of metal remains, although there

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439 E.g. Usai 1984: 99.440 Bernardini and Tore 1987: 300-301.

are also signs that the whole area was severely disturbed in both antiquity and by more

recent clandestine digging.

Excavations that have been underway at nearby Sinnai-Bruncu Mogumu (CA)

have revealed a rectangular building divided into two rooms and surrounded by an

enclosure wall, on a high ridge overlooking the Campidano plain. The layers that have

been dug so far have revealed nuragic pottery along with painted Euboean-style pottery

dating to between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. The main excavator attributes

particular importance to three “liturgical remains”-- a jug, a basin, and a whetstone-- that

were found in a niche that had been cut into the wall. In later layers, fragments of painted

Phoenician jugs were associated with the nuragic pottery, a situation described as a

“evidence of contacts between two peoples.”441

Another type of sacred place that has only been published in somewhat vague

terms is at Monastir on Monte Zara. The site has numerous remains that date between the

Neolithic and the Roman period (up to the third century CE), and has mostly been known

for its nine prehistoric domus de janas burials that were found in the 1960s.442 The main

nuragic remains that are visible, however, include two altars and two wells located on the

summit, all of which were accessed via a monumental staircase of 60 rock-cut steps. At

the base of the steps are several buildings that date to the ninth century, including a large

circular structure that Ugas and Zucca believe was used for different work activities,

including wine- or oil-pressing.443

The main religious center in the transitional area between the lower Campidano

(i.e. Cagliari) and the Iglesiente is the sanctuary complex at Matzanni. The complex is

basically made up of three wells: “A,” at the north end of the complex, “B,” 50 meters to

the south of the “A,” and “C,” about 300 meters away on the Padenteddu hill.444 Giovanni

Lilliu posited that wells “A” and “B” were contemporary, but slightly older than “C,”

based on their structural similarity and the more particular character of the latter. Well C

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441 Manunza 2006.442 Ugas 1984: 109; Barreca 1985: 83-84.443 Ugas and Zucca 1984: 58-86.444 Lilliu 1958: 200-205; Lilliu 1975: 153.

included a paved vestibule with a bench adjoined to the right wall; a wall may have also

enclosed the space directly in front of the vestibule. A series of small pilasters, betyl-like

cippi, and small altars were found near the three temples, but without any stratigraphic

context, making it difficult to designate them to a chronological phase.

The sanctuary-complex was also associated with a village, where twelve huts

have been excavated. One of these was isolated from the others, and the large quantities

of pottery found inside it-- mostly of ollae, bowls, and thick-rimmed vessels dating to the

ninth-eighth century BCE-- led the excavators to suggest that the hut was used as a

depository for ex-votoes. If this was the case, however, it seems odd that in an area

known for the exploitation of metals, no metal objects--even modest ones-- were found

inside the hut. The hut at Matzanni may have been a “meeting hut,” but it lacks certain

distinctive components of other “meeting huts,” such as an internal bench or wall-niches.

Prestigious and symbolically-rich votives-- such as a bronze “Barbetta” statuette, a

bronze bowl covered in gold sheeting (c. 700 BCE), and a stone pilaster like the one

found in the “Sala del Consiglio” at Sant’Anastasia-- were found in the well-temples

themselves, suggesting that at least some worshippers visiting the site were members of

the Sardinian elite. The documentation of an elite presence makes it more likely that a

meeting hut used for reunions and communions between the elite existed somewhere

nearby, and in fact the hut-depository may have been it. The wells seem to have been

founded in the late ninth century, but Geometric-style pottery found inside and around

them indicates that they were used up into seventh century BCE. Like many other Iron

Age sacred wells, the complex at Matzanni also has a Punic postscript: the ruins of a

fourth-century cult place appear about 250 meters to the west of wells A and B.

Another possible sacred place (sacred spring, well-sanctuary, or otherwise) may

have been at Villasor: stray finds of bronzetti and an ingot have hinted at a sacred area’s

existence, but nothing definitive has been published.445

The upper Campidano and the Marmilla

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445 Ugas and Usai 1987: 188.

In contrast to the southern corner, the upper Campidano and the Marmilla plain is

far richer in terms of evidence. On the southwest slopes of the Monti Arcuente, for

example, a cluster of wells with varying indications of religious-like activity developed

around Guspini. The best-documented of these was at Mitza Nieddinu-San Simplicio,

located about 900 meters to the southeast of nuraghe Melas and next to the modern San

Simplicio church. The sanctuary contains a shallow well, covered by a tholos and

surrounded and supported by a rectilinear wall. In 1920, the water was drained and some

pottery (jugs, other forms) was brought out, but the material was still seen as “scarse and

not significant enough for establishing whether the small building would have responded

to cultic demands as well as to the more practical purposes of drinking.”446 Adding to the

lack of clarity is the fact that although the well was carefully excavated, it remains

unpublished. It is clear, however, that it was much smaller than the sanctuary at

Sant’Anastasia and that no other adjacent structures are evident as of yet.447

Even more vague are the wells that have been identified in the localities of

Guspini-Cugui and Guspini-Is Trigas. The first of these two has evidence of occupation

for the Final Bronze through the Early Iron Age, but a distinct ritual purpose is not

explicitly attested by the evidence.448 Taramelli cites a well-sanctuary at Is Trigas, but

provides no elucidation on the remains; the site now seems to have passed out of general

scholarly reference.449

About 25 kilometers to the northeast, there was a significant jump in activity at

the older sanctuary of Sant’Anastasia-Sardara, particularly in the architectural elaboration

of the sanctuary, its display of wealth, and the number of worshippers that must have

been visiting it. Architecturally, the most noteworthy development for the well-temple

proper was the elaboration of its façade, with sculpted designs of zig-zags and concentric

circles being carved into the doorframe and a double cornice crowning the exterior of the

185

446 Lilliu 1958: 200. “...scarso e per nulla significativo per stabilire se il piccolo edifizio, oltre che alle esigenze pratiche del bere, rispondesse anche a necessità cultuali.”447 Very brief notices were given by Paderi and Ugas (1988: 37) and Koberstein (1993: 179-80).448 Koberstein 1993: 145-46; Van Dommelen 1998: ID no. 331.449 Taramelli 1918: 38, 78.

tholos.450 In addition, other parts of the building were given particularly symbolic

treatments. Taramelli described finding several rectangular building stones that had

breast-like sculptural elements and another that depicted the head of a bull.451

It is difficult to discern empirically whether there was an increase in the actual use

of the temple during the Iron Age, but there are definitely signs of a move towards both

greater visibility and ritual specialization. This can perhaps be seen, for example, in the

evidence related to animal sacrifice, like the prevalence of sheep, cow, and boar bones of

the find of a unique double-edged flint knife.452 It is also seen in the choice of vessel

forms--askoi and miniature bowls in particular-- that were used either as votives or ritual

equipment and deposited inside a pit just inside the entrance to the temple.453 A large

rimmed bowl found at the base of the well’s staircase may also be related to ritual

activities, such as the gathering of lustral water from the well. In general, votive deposits

were rare inside and in the immediate vicinity of the temple, probably because the well

was emptied on a regular basis. But, they are well-documented in the area outside of the

temple and in a smaller well on its east side. This small well produced what Taramelli

described as the most fruitful discoveries of the entire excavation and consisted mostly of

liquid-related vessels.454 Three objects included symbolically-significant representations:

a jug fragment depicting a human figure holding a club with two bull-like horned ends,455

and two vessels that were engraved with a forked object. Another object, probably a

flask, had the form of a phallus with two round protuberances at its base, which Taramelli

described as an expression of the double nature or double character of the divinity

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450 Taramelli 1918: 39-46; Lilliu 1988: 188.451 Taramelli 1918: 49-56. Taramelli described the latter piece as “the manifestation of an intimate and deep religious proto-Sard concept, the proof of a cult to a bull-form divinity, intimately connected with subterranean waters, very salutary, with the mysterious powers of the infernal world.” (Ibid.: 55-56).452 Ibid.: 94.453 These forms also confirmed that the well-temple had been in use from the 11th century up to the end of the eighth century BCE (Lilliu 1988: 462-65).454 Taramelli 1918: 79. The main forms (not completely quantified, but listed here in relative higher-to-lower counts) were small jugs, bowls, large bowls or basins, cups and small bowls, amphorae, and askoi. A certain number of spindle whorls were also found, as was one lamp.455 Taramelli compared the first figure to a bronze figurine in the Cagliari museum that wore a cape, anklets with little rings, and a circular disk on its head and held a club similar to the one represented. Taramelli believed that the bronzetto represented a dancer whose dance was connected to sacred ritual.

venerated there.456 Bronzes were less common, but definitively more votive in character.

These included part of a votive ship that was decorated with a bull protome, a small

votive quiver, a circular button with a bump at the center, and another button topped by

the schematic figure of a dove.457

There were other significant changes to the Sant’Anastasia-Sardara sanctuary, the

most notable being the installation of a large enclosure with four huts inside and the so-

called “meeting hut” directly next to the well-temple. The interior of the hut featured a

circular bench, niches in the wall, and a central base supporting a miniature nuraghe.

Excavators found twelve lead ingots inside, as well as three bronze bowls and other

minor bronze items and pottery, all dating between the ninth and end of the eighth

centuries BCE; traces of slight seventh-century reuse were found as well.458 As for the

four huts that were nearby, all yielded clear evidence of metallurgical activities.

The sanctuary at Sardara must have played a significant regional role in the

territory, both on account of its size and the fact that it is the only well-sanctuary in its

immediate surroundings. Other types of shrines were, however, nearby, and these may

have served more locally-specific purposes. At Genna Maria near Villanovaforru (CA),

there is no clear evidence as to whether there was a nuragic cult place associated with the

village. Some scholars have postulated, however, that many of the materials-- mostly

pottery and stone objects-- “occasionally [had] ritual purposes” prior to the settlement’s

abandonment in the late eighth century BCE.459

At Su Mulinu near Villanovafranca, part of the complex nuraghe that originally

dated to the Middle Bronze Age was reprised for religious purposes at the beginning of

the ninth century.460 The focus of the shrine was a large altar in the shape of a nuraghe

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456 Ibid.: 92. It should be noted that his interpretation took the round shapes to represent female breasts instead of the equally-possible male testes or other non-sexual objects.457 Bronze spirals, beads, rings, armbands, pins, needles, one fibula, and three other beads (glass paste and quartz) were also mentioned among the finds. Remains of lead salding show that many of these would have been affixed to an offering table or to the building itself.458 Ugas and Usai 1987: 181.459 Van Dommelen 1998: 88; see also Badas et al. 1988: 15-17.460 The space in which the shrine was installed may have been used for ritual purposes in the Middle Bronze Age, as the remains of two hearths in the room suggest, but there is a clear hiatus that separates the 14th century phase with that which began at the beginning of the 9th century BCE (Ugas 1989-90).

that was decorated with bronze swords and relief-work. A bench ran around the interior

wall of the room and bronze items surrounded the nuraghe-altar. A large number of oil

lamps were present as well, suggesting that they played an important role in the rituals

performed in the shrine. The complex remained in use up to the end of the sixth century

when it was abandoned.461

The extensive Bronze Age village at Su Nuraxi-Barumini suffered a massive

destruction in the tenth century BCE, but in the late ninth and eighth centuries, a new hut

village developed over the Bronze Age ruins, consiting of 18 houses for a population of

about 90 people. A significant feature of the new village was “Room 80,” a meeting hut

that was put up in the eighth century near the public well, directly beside the older,

twelfth-century “Room 135.”462 Room 80 was a large (external diameter of 9.7 m.),

bench-lined room that Lilliu and Zucca believed served as an official meeting place and

perhaps as a shrine or treasury for the community, as signified by the presence of a

nuraghe-model betyl: "...the power, almost sacred, and the value of material and spiritual

guardianship emanating from the megalithic monument onto the settlement below.”463

Five niches were cut into the interior walls of the hut, the largest of which was across

from the entrance. At the bottom of this central niche excavators found a trapezoial stone

basin, a circular stone basin, and the nuraghe-model betyl, all of which suggested that the

hut was involved in ritual ceremonies.

The ‘Giara’ and the central interior

Further to the north, a number of different sacred areas developed during the Iron

Age. Another cave shrine consisting of two connected rooms, one of which strongly

resembles the form of a “meeting hut,” has been identified at Morgongiori-Sa Grutta de Is

Caombus. The site dates to the Final Bronze-Iron Age, but unfortunately, it remains

188

461 Ugas and Paderi 1990: 475-79. The nuraghe was once again used for religious purposes during the Roman period, especially between 50 BCE and 150 CE.462 Lilliu and Zucca 1988: 42-43, 67-69, 118-20; “Room 135” (Ibid.: 133-34) also seems to have been connected with ritual ceremonies during the Bronze Age, as supported by finds of several pozzetti with votive materials (mostly pottery) and sacrificial remains (mostly birds and rodents). 463 Ibid.: 67. “...la potenza, quasi sacra, e il valore di custodia materiale e spirituale emanante dal monumento megalitico sul sottostante abitato."

largely unpublished.464 To the east, around Gonnosnò, two more wells with probable

religious functions were constructed as well. The first, at Gonnosno-Sa Corona Arrùbia,

is known mostly from fallen building materials that from their form and fine

workmanship make their belonging to a religious structure very likely, even if it was “of

minor significance.”465 The second well, at Figu-Gonnosnò-San Salvatore, was first

introduced by Taramelli as “an example of a covered nuragic staircase, which is what

remains visible of a well, perhaps consecrated, which I visited at S. Salvatore at Figu,

near Ales.”466 More recent explorations have shown that it had the typical form of other

tholos-style well-sanctuaries.467 Unlike other examples, though, the well-sanctuary at

Figu-San Salvatore also included a walled entry vestibule that formed a rectangular

façade to the structure. In the center of this forecourt area stood a betyl or menhir which

was inserted into the floor surface. Additional wall remains have been noted on the sides

of the vestibule, perhaps indicating the presence of an enclosure wall.

An unpublished sacred well has also been identified at Ales in locality Zeppara.

The Sopritendenza of Cagliari has been able to say that the well dates back to the

“nuragic” period, based on the form of the structure that surrounded the well and ceramic

material. The sherds collected also indicated a great number of amphorae, plates, and

lamps, most of which dated to the Punic and Roman period.

Yet another well-sanctuary stood on the southern slopes of the Valenza hill, near

Nuragus (loc. Coni-Santu Millanu, CA), in association with a village that was protected

by the nuraghe Santu Millanu. The well was made out of basalt blocks and had the same

plan as other tholos-covered wells in the area.468 It had at least three different phases, two

of which were Roman reconstructions; the installation of the staircase and tholos-

chamber goes back to the eighth century BCE. At some point in the temple’s history, a

small piazza was built in front of the entrance. It seems likely that in this phase, the entry

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464 Lilliu 1988: 542.465 Taramelli 1907: 38. See also Badas et al. 1988: 8.466 Taramelli 1918: 44, note 1 “...un esemplare di copertura di scala nuragica, che è quanto rimane visibile di un pozzo, forse consacrato, da me visitato a S. Salvatore, presso Figu, nelle vicinanze di Ales.”467 Zaru and Bagaladi 2006. 468 Taramelli 1915.

vestibule and a nuragic votive deposit connected to it were destroyed, an event which

would help explain the almost complete lack of finds dating to the protostoric period. The

only Iron Age object, in fact, is a bronze statuette found under the foundation course that

has been interpreted as either a matriarch or priestess figure.469 A few Phoenician-Punic

glass paste beads may also belong to the transitional phase between the Iron Age and

early Archaic period.470

Frequentation of the sacred well at Santa Vittoria-Serri (NU) on the southwest

edge of the Giara plateau seems to have begun in the tenth century, but the site exploded

with activity during the ninth and eighth centuries BCE. The complex was huge,

extending over three hectares of terrain, and it made use of a strategically and naturally

significant place. Since the early 1900s when the site was first explored by Taramelli and

Filippo Nissardi, it has been thought that the sanctuary constituted an open and neutral

“central place” that would have drawn both pilgrims and the political elite from the

surrounding regions, as deduced from the presence of both a large, elliptical enclosure at

the center of the site and a “council house” or meeting hut on its northeastern edge.471

The whole complex is made up of at least 20 buildings, articulated into four

separate groups, each of which seem to have responded to religious and communal needs.

Most of the religious activity was concentrated into an area near an older fortification

wall and nuragic towers. In this area, there were two shrines, one being a sacred well and

the other a rectangular building, each with its own temenos; several annexed rooms

probably used for either housing personnel or cult equipment were also present.472 The

sacred well structure conforms to the general well-temple plan, with the addition of a

squarish, front vestibule (2 x 2 m.) with an internal bench, a basin, and, at the center, a

large piece of limestone with a long cavity cut into its top surface which has been

interpreted as an altar. 473 The façade was decorated with various sculptural elements,

most notably, a bull’s horned head. Early excavations recorded finding various stone

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469 Taramelli 1913.470 Lilliu 1984b: 93.471 Taramelli and Nissardi 1914: 427; more recently, Lilliu 1984c: 211.472 Taramelli 1922: 297-310.473 Ibid.: 332-334.

betyls and cippi, some decorated with incised geometric motifs, but their exact location in

the sanctuary-area remains unclear.474

The rectangular shrine measured 5 x 4.8 meters and was constructed out of

limestone and basalt blocks from an earlier Bronze Age structure. There were two entries

into the building, the northern one of which led to a series of enclosed, round spaces,

probably reserved for religious personnel. The interior walls were furnished with benches

that were used for bronze soldering, as evidenced by a series of cavities and plates found

on them. The presence of a limestone betyl in the room alludes to its sacred character, and

two altars--perhaps installed after the building’s first phase-- stood to the north. One of

these altars nearly abutted the building’s wall and seems to have been closely linked to a

small annex cut into the exterior side of the building. The building originally dates to

around the ninth century BCE, but it was later enlarged around the middle of the seventh

century after a fire.

Ritual activity was densely concentrated into this part of the site and seems to

have been intense during the ninth and eighth centuries. The basin beside the entrance to

the well-temple probably functioned in lustral activities that may have complemented

both the descent towards the well and offerings of blood or other liquids on the altar in

front of it. Sacrifices could have been carried out in front of either shrine, and there are

some signs that the various altars may have demanded different forms of sacrificial ritual.

In both settings piles of ashes were heaped up near the altars and on top of the benches;

cows, deer, sheep, goats, and pigs were represented among the bones.

The vast amount of material found in both temple areas attests to a thriving

practice of votive dedication as well. In the well-temple, bronzetti, weapons, ornamental

objects made out of copper, bronze, and gold, amber, ivory, and glass paste were all used

as votive items, probably being deposited or affixed onto the bench that went around the

atrium’s interior wall. Several building slabs had deep cut marks filled with traces of lead

and sections of swords. Reconstructions of the building have conjectured that the swords

were placed upright in the roof of the temple and that they functioned both apotropaically

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474 Taramelli and Nissardi 1914: 350-53.

and as a symbol of the society that frequented it.475 A similar range of bronze and

precious objects came from inside the rectangular temple, although this area also

included a certain amount of pottery. Jugs, bowls, and cooking ware (mostly pans and

pentole) were the most numerous forms, probably attesting to the fact that the rectangular

temple (as opposed to the well sanctuary) was the place for food consumption.

This area of the two temples was both the earliest area used for religious purposes

and is the part of the site where traces of material correlates are the thickest. Other parts

of the site, however, were also integral components of the sanctuary and the evidence

associated with them indicates that they used different ritual signifiers to inform more

profane experiences or activities and vice versa. At the center of the site was the large

“festival enclosure,” an elliptical, porticoed enclosure (measuring roughly 73 x 50 m.)

with two entrances at the southwest and southeast and small rooms all around the

perimeter. Pestles and stone mortars, tools for cutting wood and filing knives, meaty

animal bones, and random ornamental objects attest to the use of the space. The larger

rooms had benches with basins set into them containing food remains and large amounts

of common pottery (cooking pots, bowls, tiles, plates, lamps) as well as some bronze

tools and weapons, ornamental objects, and statuettes, including an anthropomorphic one

in terracotta. One particular room that held several axes and a cylindrical pilaster

decorated with a double axe seems to have been the cultic center of the enclosure. It’s

been suggested that the enclosure was used for games or sacred dances and for commerce

and communal gathering.476

Another group-- the so-called “group of the enclosure of the double betyl” seems

to have been used for domestic and more private sacred activities.477 Beyond this group,

on the very edge of the sanctuary was the final outstanding feature of the sanctuary, the

“hut of the reunions” or “meeting hut,” a round hut with an internal bench that could have

held about 50 people. The distinctive character of the building was accentuated by

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475 Ibid.: 353-54.476 Lilliu 1984c: 213.477 So-called because one room was probably a private shrine that had inside it an altar-like feature composed of two tapered columns joined by a stone base. Remains of bronze ex-votoes were seen infixed on top of it with lead, one of which was recognized as the aniconic image of a double betyl.

additional architectural features, such as an internal cornice that Lilliu has argued

functioned symbolically or ornamentally (or both) as an extended crown over the heads

of nobles sitting on the bench.478 Three niches are also cut into the walls, one next to the

entrance and others on the sides. A rectangular basin with a conical betyl in front of it was

placed in the niche on the left side, while another basin stood just inside the entrance.

Piles of ashes, carbon and animal bones (bovines, goats, boar) spread across the entirety

of the floor, but they were especially abundant around the betyl. A significant number of

bronze animal statuettes (representing bulls, sheep, boars, and goats), bronze objects and

weapons (needles and points, knifes, spear parts), miniature bronze vessels, terracotta

vessels (most often, jugs and plates) were found as well, all of which indicate the special

nature of this hut and which would have imbued whatever occurred within its confines

with sacred overtones. Significantly, a bronze incense burner of Cypriot import dating to

the eighth-seventh century suggests that rites could have been held at night, when

discussion could have been held more privately.

About 25 kilometers to the southeast, there is another well-sanctuary at Su Putzu

(near Orriòli (CA)) that dates to between the ninth and sixth centuries BCE, with reuse in

the Roman period. The sanctuary stands to the northwest of a nuragic village where there

was a slight depression in the “Su Pranu” basalt plateau. It is composed primarily of a

well inside a tholos-covered room, and accessed by a shallow set of steps from the

surface level. The stairs were flanked by two walls that, from the outside, gave the

building a rather elongated form. Two walls spread from the sides of the well-structure to

form a sort of exedral entrance to the well. Giovanni Lilliu called attention to the shared

apsidal entrance of both well-sanctuaries and giants tomb, arguing that their similarity

was evidence for “a relationship of interdependence between the cult of the dead and that

of water deities.”479 Excavations carried out inside the well and around its perimeter

uncovered very few materials related to the sanctuary’s use, and most of what they did

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478 Lilliu 1984c: 213.479 Lilliu 1958: 205. “...una relazione di dipendenza fra il culto dei morti e quello della divinità delle acque.”

recover dated to the Roman period.480 Carbonized animal remains, nuragic pot sherds,

and a pestle found at the bottom of the well, however, suggest that animal sacrifice and

consumption likely took place nearby or that the well was used as a place for casting

away material perhaps used during ritualistic ceremonies.

The Gulf of Oristano, the Stagno di Cabras, and hinterland

The last “sub-region” within the broader case-study area is that of the “coastal”

area and immediate hinterland around Oristano. New sanctuaries were especially

common in the Sinis peninsula and to the north of Oristano, but two hoards found in the

area of the the south, where modern towns are more dense and prevent in-depth

investigation, may indicate that this area also had certain areas of sacred significance.

Bronzes, including two incense burners, found near Basilica Santa Giusta (OR) are not

directly associated with any particular structure, but the rarity of the materials makes a

potential nearby cult place a real possibility.481 At S’Arridelli, near Terralba (OR), a

treasury of bronzes weighing 6.88 kilograms was found inside a terracotta vessel.482 The

bronzes consisted of 15 weaponry items and another five statuettes, four of which

represented a standing woman and the fifth a “chief”-figure. These figurines are

somewhat similar to other figurines found at well-sanctuaries at Sant’Anastasia and Santa

Cristina, but they also wear unique headgear not seen in other statuettes.483 The wealth of

the treasury and the parallels that the material has with other sites has led to the

suggestion that the deposit was originally offered around the end of the eighth century in

a sanctuary associated with the nearby “large open” FBA-EIA village at S. Ciriaco

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480 Lilliu (1958: 209-11) mentions three Roman-era deposits left on the staircase, along with a few nuragic sherds.481 Nieddu and Zucca (1991: 48-49, tav. XVII-XVIII) go so far as to argue that a sanctuary similar in scale to that of Santa Vittoria-Serri would have been at Santa Giusta.482 Artudi and Perra 1995: 31; 1996: 14-16; cited in Van Dommelen 1998: 96.483 Stylistic criteria date the bronzetti to the late 9th/early 8th century—the so-called “praying lady” is very similar to the statuette found in the Villanovan tomb at Cavalupo near Vulci (Lilliu 1953: 25-79; Lilliu 1966: nos 71, 79, 81).

(S'Arrideli); it was then removed and re-buried as a hoard in the mid-sixth century

BCE.484

Better substantiated are the well-sanctuaries at Arborea and on the Sinis

peninsula. Excavations in the marina of Arborea (locality Orri) have only just begun, but

they have already uncovered several courses of the tholos of a nuragic well-temple in an

area where a number of Punic-style votive statuettes were found.485 Part of the staircase

has also been dug, on which were found more statuettes that indicate certain illnesses by

the position of their hands. The material recovered so far seems to confirm that a salutary

cult was definitely here by the second half of the fourth century, probably similar to the

Punic sanctuaries at Neapolis, Bithia, and elsewhere, but have not yet reached earlier

levels.

Several well-temples were also built in the northern part of the Sinis peninsula

around the Stagno di Cabras during the Iron Age. Unfortunately, the one at San Salvatore

underwent a series of reuses in the Punic, Roman, Constantinian, and early modern

periods, with the result that the original structure is almost completely lost.486 However, it

is certain that the well itself dates back to the nuragic period, as does a betyl that was

found inside it and that is still visible today. Stratified nuragic materials which Barreca

described as “the remains of ritual meals” also came from a pozzetto inside a room off of

the access corridor.487 More support for the nuragic occupation of this area comes from

the remains of a polybate nuraghe and associated materials about 200 meters to the north.

The sanctuary at Cabras-Cuccuru s’Arriu was discovered in the late 1970s while a

canal was being dug connecting the Stagno di Cabras to the Gulf of Oristano.

Excavations revealed a Middle Neolithic necropolis, various Upper Neolithic settlements,

a Chalcolithic settlement, a Nuragic well-temple, which was annexed and partially reused

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484 Van Dommelen (1998: 158) notes that the hoard has also been interpreted as the collection of a bronze smith due to the damaged state of the finds.485 Usai 2006.486 Levi 1949. The lowest level of the church is now made up of the well plus five other rooms that branch off of it. Nuragic materials have only come from one of these rooms, but the lack of stratigraphic remains in the other rooms makes it impossible to determine what phase of the sanctuary’s life they belong to. In any case, the presence of an additional room off the side of the well is an exception to the typical well-sanctuary plan and may indicate regional discrepancies in building style amongst the Sards. 487 Barreca 1984a: 152.

in a late-Republican cult area, Punic and Late-Punic settlements, and finally, an imperial

Roman necropolis.488 The Iron Age shrine included a well-chamber with a small

rectangular forecourt (later covered over by a rectangular room in the third century BCE).

Excavations around the perimeter of the well-chamber identified a series of layers dating

to the ninth to sixth centuries BCE, the uppermost of which is the best documented. This

level dated most likely to the seventh-sixth century--the chronology is very unclear from

the reports--, and contained lots of ash mixed with scraps of sandstone, animal bones,

shells, numerous fragmentary pots, and bronze slag. Quantitative analyses of the pottery

were never carried out, but bowls and carinated cups seem to be the most richly

documented categories. Also associated with these were other forms, such as large

carinated bowls, globular ollae, and dippers, as well as perhaps some askoidal forms.

Notably absent are the piriform vessels and the concentric impressed circles decoration

that is typical of Sardinian Iron Age pottery, thus lending support to dating this level to a

later era as well as perhaps indicating a shift in material culture by the Archaic period. At

the same time, the assemblage also shares certain significant typological affinities with

ceramic materials that have come from the votive wells of Room 135 at Barumini.489

To the north, another shrine developed around a well at the indigenous settlement

near Narbolia-Banatou, although most of the published material actually dates to later

periods (see below). Further inland, at Santa Cristina near Paulilatino (OR), another very

finely built well-sanctuary was installed in an area that had already been well-populated

during the Bronze Age.490 Lilliu wrote that, “Already around the ninth century, the

sacred had exploded there, as the Phoenician and indigenous bronze statuettes show, and

as is the case even today in the 'muristene' next to the rustic chapel of the saint, which, in

its circular form, imitates the ancient.”491 The well-temple has the typical “keyhole”-plan,

but shows a much more refined degree of construction. The whole area is also surrounded

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488 Santoni and Sebis 1982.489 Santoni and Sebis 1982: 113.490 I.e. based on the presence of four nuraghi in a 3-km radius and several ‘tombe di giganti’ in the area (Goronna, Vidili Paras, and Perdu Pe).491 Lilliu 2006: 66. “Già verso il IX secolo a.C., come testimoniano le statuette in bronzo fenicie e indigene, il sacro vi esplodeva, come avviene ancor oggi nel ‘muristene’ presso la chiesetta rustica della santa, che, nella forma circulare, imita l’antico.”

by a rather large elliptical enclosure wall whose entrance is in a direct line with the

staircase entrance. Phoenician and Punic imports were found at the site, as were large

numbers of molded terracotta fragments related to the cult of Ceres and Demeter dating

to the late Punic period.492 Stratigraphic excavations around the well were only carried

out rather late and the results have yet to be published, except for a small selection of

objects that lack a secure context; these included two bronze Phoenician-style statuettes,

two fibulae, some terracotta figurines, and parts of a necklace.493

In addition, a large circular hut (10 m. diameter) with a nice cobblestone floor and

internal bench was put up beside the well-temple. Based on similar buildings at other

nuragic sites, the hut has been interpreted as a “meeting hut.” Next to the hut was another

smaller round space and a detached enclosure that was probably used as a holding pen for

animals used in sacrifice. Other smaller rectangular spaces nearby have been construed as

possibly being shops or craft areas, presumably analogous to the spaces inside the

“festival enclosure” at Santa Vittoria-Serri. Unfortunately, all of these buildings and the

other huts that surrounded the well-temple were largely dismantled in the nineteenth and

early twentieth century in order to make use of the stone. As a result, there were no

stratigraphic layers and thus no way (at least for now) to date the abandonment of the

buildings.

The situation at Santa Cristina with the well-built sanctuary, meeting house, and

possible shops or market-related buildings recalls the situation at both Santa Vittoria-Serri

and at Sant’Anastasia-Sardara. The parallels between these sites also extends to the

relationship they seem to have had with their surroundings. With the sanctuary complex

at Santa Cristina, yet again is there a lack of major sites of religious activity in the nearby

territory, roughly coinciding with a 30-kilometer radius around the site. There are,

however, other, smaller (more local?) sites. At Nuraghe Losa near Abbasanta (OR), for

example, part of the nuragic tower was reorganized into a shrine and an antemural was

put up around it in the ninth-eighth century. The shrine seems to have been used primarily

for the purpose of depositing (and perhaps protecting) various bronze and terracotta

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492 Webster 1996: 184-88; Dyson and Rowland 2007: 86.493 Moravetti 2003: 14-17.

votive objects. Excavations in various parts of the central nuraghe have restored stone

objects (balls for slingshots, troughs, hand grinders, pestles), metal weapons and tools,

fragmented bronze votive boats and statuettes, spindle-whorls, “pintaderas,” and other

ceramic fragments. Various pots and some stone “equipment” found in the area suggest

that the nuraghe continued to be used for religious purposes up to the sixth century

BCE.494 Another sacred place may have also been associated with the nuragic settlement

at S’Uraki-San Vero Milis (OR) where there was also a complex nuraghe, based on finds

of incense burners in the area.495

Summary

These sites constitute potentially 33 distinct sacred areas that developed during

the Iron Age. When compared to Sicily, the differences between the pre-700 material on

the two islands is striking. Where Sicilian indigenous religious or ritual activity prior to

650 BCE appears dispersed, visibly modest, and only occasionally restricted to particular

spaces, Sardinian religious organization was highly structured, well-articulated, and

remarkably consistent over a broad geographical area, as exemplified in particular by the

implementation of a highly specialized type of architecture and repetition of certain

votive and symbolic materials. The form of well-temples varied occasionally over both

time and space, but the basic shape of the tholos-covered chamber, accessed via a

staircase and often surrounded by a temenos wall was recurrent. Likewise, the type of

material used for votive offerings shows some variance, but even here, most sites follow

one of two patterns: they either include metal offerings amongst their remains or they do

not. Exceptional, in fact, is the sanctuary that only includes a single bronze element, as

seems to be the case at Santu Millanu-Nuragus. On a related note, although the general

scholarly impression has been that metal offerings were common amongst Sardinian

sanctuaries, a closer analysis of the materials and their distribution shows that in this

study area, they come from only 12 sites. Two of these sites were locations of hoards and

can only be talked about hypothetically, but for the other ten sites, another interesting

pattern links them together: a meeting-hut or nuraghe model (or both) was present nearby.

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494 Taramelli 1916: 240, 249-54; Lilliu 1984a: 142.495 Barreca 1986: 318; Tore 1986: 71-72; Tore and Stiglitz 1987: 168.

As for the symbolic qualities of religious activity, the sum of material attestations

of the correlates is not as impressive as the fact that the same things appear over and over

again. For sites that have produced bronzetti or metal deposits, for example, warrior

statuettes, weaponry, and especially the bronze swords fixed into the building structure of

well-sanctuaries point to the close interrelationship between religion and social status in

nuragic society and to a shared ideology that privileged the warrior and/or virtue in battle.

Another category that might support this idea of a shared symbolic system among these

different communities is the act of prayer. The bronzetti again provide the evidence,

mainly through the many statuettes of individuals (priests, warriors, women, and

offerents are all represented) with their hand raised in salutation or prayer, their mouths

open, and their other hand often holding an offering. Other symbolic elements hint at

shared religious concepts of fertility (the “mammellarie” and perhaps the recurrent finds

of bull figurines), life and death (the votive boats), and ties to the past (the nuraghe-

models, menhirs, etc.).

The evidence pertaining to other correlates is much more sporadically attested.

Part of this is certainly due to the poor level of recording for some of these sites,

particularly of faunal remains and coarse wares. But, part of this also seems to be a real

discrepancy in the types of religious practice carried on at certain sanctuaries and the

degree of intensity. “Attention-focusing” devices, for example, were present for some

sites, but no more than 11 unless we count the well itself as a “device.” Evidence for

animal sacrifice is similarly disparate: another 11 sites (not exactly the same ones)

produced either altars or burnt animal remains. We can probably safely assume that some

degree of food offering or consumption occurred subsequent to the sacrifice, but other

sites may have also had different types of food consumption, as is attested by the

presence of baking pans and cookware at at least three additional sites.

Clearly, the sites that correspond most fully to the archaeological framework of

religion are those of the large sanctuary complexes. These centers were also areas of

major political and social networking and, significantly, often have ties to economic

production, particularly in metal working. In the next section, I discuss the developments

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within these and other sanctuary areas after 700 BCE, that is, the period following the

settlement of the Phoenicians along the southern and western coasts. After that I return to

the issue of the social implications of Sardinian nuragic religion, and situate the

developments of the Iron Age against the evidence of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Indigenous Sardinian Religious Organization after 700 BCE

The developments in indigenous Sardinian religion that follow the arrival of the

Phoenicians in Sardinia can only be understood when judged against the more general

settlement occupation of the southwestern region. Recent studies have emphasized the

regional diversity of nuragic settlement patterns during the Iron Age, noting significant

differences between certain areas, particularly those around the coast in comparison to

more interior sites.496 Of the 513 Bronze Age sties in the territory of the Riu Mannu and

its surroundings (the Marmilla, upper and central Campidano, and Sinis area; thus,

overlapping with the study area here except for the lower Campidano and the Sulcis-

Iglesies region), for example, Van Dommelen identified 41 sites with definite signs of

Iron Age (which he defined as “after the late 9th century BC”) occupation.497 Another 60

sites might potentially be added to this count, if one applied the same ratio of Iron-Age

occupied sites to the 200 “generically ‘Nuragic’” sites in the Marmilla. If this number is

used as the average for the study area, it would mean that only about 20% of Bronze Age

sites remained occupied to some time after the late ninth century BCE.

Current explanations for this discontinuity in settlement occupation vary. Lilliu’s

early work did not really distinguish between the early Iron Age and later periods and

consequently, the disruption in settlement occupation after the ninth century is not even

acknowledged.498 In fact, in some of the publications Lilliu stated that the Iron Age saw

significant growth in the number and size of villages and cult sites.499 Narrower

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496 Cf. Atzeni 1987; Michels and Webster 1987; Sebis 1987; Lilliu et al. 1988; Rowland and Dyson 1991; Van Dommelen 1998.497 Van Dommelen 1998: 87-103; 101. See Sebis 1987: 110-11 for definition of the post-9th century as “Iron Age occupation.” 498 E.g. Lilliu 1966, in which the dates of the sites used to illustrate the “Middle Nuragic II” period range between 1300 and 700 BCE.499 Lilliu 1967: 230-31.

chronologies were used in his later work, however, and in these emerged most explicitly

the idea that, following the arrival of the Phoenicians, the ancient Sards had engaged into

a retreat into the interior, where indigenous traditions were strongly maintained and were

responsible for the particular character of the interior Sardinian population that had

developed.500 Oft cited is a letter written by Pope Gregory the Great to the Ospitone on

the 15th of April, 594 CE in which he bemoaned the fact that still in his time, the

“Barbaricini omnes ut insensata animalia vivant, Deum verum nesciant, ligna autem et

lapides adorent.” Barreca also postulated a shift inland for the nuragic population,

although unlike Lilliu, Barreca saw this as happening fairly immediately after the arrival

of the Phoenicians in the eighth century BCE as a consequence of what he thought to be

early Phoenician territorial expansion in order to control mining routes. However, he also

imagined an “obvious” and aggressive opposition to this expansion project on behalf of

the nuragic Sards, “who, by this period, had attained a highly evolved [level of] political

organization and greater military strength, along with an advanced material culture and a

deeper awareness of their rights and opportunities. Armed contact between the two

peoples was inevitable; contact of which the literary sources do not speak, but that is

documented archaeologically...”.501

Webster has a somewhat different take on Iron Age settlement patterns, although

he still attributes developments of the period at least partly to the presence of the

Phoenicians. He stresses a pattern of extensive changes at individual sites, mostly

involving increasing introversion and an intensification of defensive works within the

settlements. He argues that the arrival of the Phoenicians, sometime “between the 11th

and 8th century BC” spurred modifications in both residential layout and work spaces at

the largest indigenous settlements and in contributed to increased social stratification.502

The chronological span for which Webster allows gives such a wide berth for colonial

influence that the dramatic rupture in settlement occupation is underemphasized.

Similarly, Van Dommelen claims that the “Final Nuragic period” (900-500 BCE) is

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500 Cf. Lilliu 1990: 443.501 Barreca 1986: 29.502 Webster 1996: 159; Webster and Webster 1998: 199.

largely a continuation of what had begun in the preceding “Third Nuragic period” (LBA-

FBA, 1200-900 BCE), in which differences between regions of the island became more

pronounced and external contacts were maintained, although with a gradual shift towards

the Italian mainland. The “conventional” representation of Sardinia that Van Dommelen

claims to be reacting against is that with the arrival of the Phoenicians, Sardinia went

from being a mostly “internal” or isolated culture to a more Mediterranean-integrated

one.503 In addition, claiming that the changes of the Final Nuragic period (900-500 BCE)

are largely the prolongation of earlier Bronze Age development also means a correlative

denial of changes in nuragic “culture” being due to contact with new colonial settlements.

In stressing the agency of indigenous populations and longer-term history, the

contributions of more recent postcolonial re-readings of the material like Van

Dommelen’s have been immense. However, one significant problem emerges in that the

definition of Iron Age occupation to the period “after the late ninth century BC” merges

endogenous developments within nuragic Iron Age society with any changes that

occurred after eighth-century BCE Phoenician colonization. Clearly it is essential to give

proper place to the fact that the nuragic landscape was already changing prior to colonial

foundations. But, an 80% contraction rate from the end of the Bronze Age to the eighth

century is absolutely astouding and its coincidence with the standard dates and the first

appearance of regular Phoenician settlement in Sardinia seems too significant to shake off

lightly. Usai, in fact, has argued that the Iron Age retraction seen at various sites should

be seen as a process of protourbanization, similar to what happens on Italian peninsula:

“Si ha, in effetti, la conferma di un dato attestato, in ambito peninsulare ad esempio nella

II fase villanoviana e cioè il ridursi degli insediamenti della età del ferro, causato dallo

spopulamento di una serie di centri del bronzo finale e dall’aumento della populazione

nei nuovi poli di attrazione.”504

This need for chronological clarity is thrown into relief when the evidence for

religious activity is brought to the forefront. While the settlement pattern shows that

many of the older nuragic villages were abandoned (particularly in the coastal region)

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503 Van Dommelen 1998: 69.504 Usai 1987: 244.

between 800 and 700 BCE, in many ways this period is also when worship at nuragic

sanctuaries peaked. Figure 4-2 summarizes the appearance of indigenous Sardinian

“sacred contexts” from the end of the Bronze Age up to 400 BCE.

Figure 4-2. Measurement of the number of indigenous sacred areas documented in

central-southwestern Sardinia between c. 900 and 400 BCE.

In 900 BCE, there were many tombe di Giganti still being used for various ritual

activities, while there were only five non-funerary areas that show definitive signs of

ritual activity. The lack of good chronology makes it difficult to be precise about what

happened during the transition to the Iron Age, but it is clear that by 750 BCE (or, to put

it another way, between 900 and 750 BCE), worship at Giants‘ Tombs had declined

dramatically while at the same time, there had been a significant growth in the number of

non-funerary sacred areas. The period 750-700 BCE seems to be the peak of Nuragic

religious activity. A few sites started to go out of use or suffer partial or total destruction

around 700 BCE, and by 600 only half of the earlier Iron Age sanctuaries were still being

used. As I discuss further below, during the sixth century, a handful of sites-- Barumini,

Su Putzu Orrioli, Cabras-Cuccuru S’Arriu, Nuraghe Losa-Abbasanta, Banatou-- would

0

15

30

45

60

75

90

900 B

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750 B

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700 B

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600 B

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500 B

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400 B

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Indigenous Sardinian “sacred contexts, c. 900-400 BCEN

of

occu

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sac

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Date by which sacred areas exist

Funerary Non-funerary

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continue to be used, but even most of these are abandoned by 525-500 BCE. Throughout

this entire period, the tombe di Giganti never regained their earlier status as centers of

ritual activity, although a few do show signs of occasional visitation.

Only one sanctuary-- the complex at Sant’Anastasia--has definitive signs of an

eighth-century abandonment, probably spurred by violent destruction and a site-wide fire.

Beyond this site, two isolated bronze hoards that seem to date no later than the end of the

eighth century may also be linked to the decline of two (unknown) sanctuaries and the

removal and reburial of their votives around this phase. There was at least one other

sanctuary--Su Nuraxi-Barumini--that underwent fairly serious damage and had to be

rebuilt in the seventh century. Many of the sacred settings, however, continued to be used

and used intensely without any real disruptions. Drop-offs in ritual activity at Giants’

Tombs were more extensive--by 700 only 4 were still being used as places of votive

dedication and/or other forms of religious practice.

This moment was, however, short-lived. More sites show signs of destruction and/

or abandonment throughout the seventh century, even though in at least some cases,

rebuilding was quick. Around 700 BCE, Su Nuraxi was almost completely destroyed, but

the settlement was refounded probably in the first decades of the seventh century BCE.

This phase included 14 new houses and Lilliu estimates that the village would have held

about 100 inhabitants (excluding those that may have lived inside the the rooms of the

nuraghe).505 Room 80 was refitted after the destruction and the amount of metals and

other items found in Room 80 show that offerings continued to be left in them up through

the third quarter of the seventh century; these included bronze figurines depicting males

with raised hands, animals, and bull-protomes from two votive ships, plus “una grande

quantità” of bronzes weighing two kilograms altogether.506 The finds from Room 135

suggest its involvement in food preparation and storage, probably for a larger group of

people based on the quantity of remains.507 Scattered Archaic pottery fragments imply

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505 Lilliu and Zucca 1988: 125.506 Ibid.: 58-59. Finds included bronze panelle, a fibula (early 7th c.), forklets, spirals, parts of a necklace, rings, a cylindrical support, and the stub of a sword fixed with lead on a basalt pedestal.507 Lilliu 1955: 306, 442-47. Finds included an intact brazier, remains of bronze knives, bowls, carinated cups, globular ollae, biconical vases, jugs, pans, spiane and lamps, and one “coppa a fruttiera.”

that the buildings remained in use during the sixth century, but it seems to have been of

less intensely or clearly religious character from 600 BCE onwards. By the end of the

sixth century, the site was abandoned.

A fire perhaps related to a violent episode around 650 BCE damaged many of the

structures at Santa Vittoria, but again the site seems to have recovered rather quickly and

the rectangular shrine was renovated. There are also traces of reuse of the sanctuary at

Sant’Anastasia-Sardara in the late seventh century. Other sanctuaries, however, went out,

and stayed out, of use after 650 BCE. The bronze hoard from Basilica Santa Giusta near

Oristano was buried during this period, and its seems highly likely that the well sanctuary

at San Salvatore had been mostly abandoned based on the lack of seventh century

material.508

Most tellingly, by the end of the seventh century BCE, only 17 of the former 33

sanctuaries were still being used for religious purposes, although several new areas also

appeared, mostly in the northern part of the study area. In the Sulcis-Iglesies region,

visitation to the cave shrine at Pirosu-Su Benatzu continued and may have also with the

spring at Narcao. In the lower Campidano, Cuccuru Nuraxi and probably Monastir-Monte

Zara maintained religious functions, although the chronology for the latter is completely

obscure. Further north and closer to the interior, early Archaic religious activity seems

better attested at the older sanctuaries; things were clearly still in progress at Su Mulinu

and the new village at Su Nuraxi-Barumini by 600 BCE. In the north-northwestern part

of the case study, the sacred wells at both Cuccuru s’Arriu and Banatòu-Narbolia (OR)

continued. At Banatòu, excavations in the well restored a mix of material dating up

through the late Punic period, but the discovery of a seventh-century sculpted head

almost identical to those found at Monte Prama has confirmed the continuity of the

structure and the diffusion of ritual trends, such as the use of stone, human sculpture as

either symbolic marker or votive display. Other finds including seven vessels, a clay

plaquette, a figurine of a person seated on a throne, six statuettes of types similar to those

found at the temple of Bes at Bithia, and Punic pottery fragments, indicate that the

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508The limited research conducted at Arborea makes it currently impossible to define its occupational history more closely than that it had “nuragic” and 4th-c. phases.

building continued to be used into the sixth century, although by this phase the

surrounding area seems to have been generally abandoned and the well was probably

“Punic.” Although the site was dug in 1965, details of the material remain unpublished.509

Other, new areas developed too, and the distribution and type of imported items

appears to have changed. Where in the previous period, metal and faience imports had

been not common but still regular features of certain sacred contexts, during the seventh

century imports were almost exclusively ceramic and had a much more widespread

occurence.510 Different areas also came to be centers of religious-like activity, based on

their evidence. Of these, the most conspicuous was at Monte Prama, a nuragic settlement

located about 10 kilometers north of Tharros. The site consists of a cemetery and perhaps

an affiliated sanctuary that has been dated as spanning the entirety of the seventh century

BCE.511 The cemetery, delimited by a row of vertical sandstone slabs, was made up of a

row of 30 small pits inside of which individual bodies had been placed seated, mostly

facing east and mostly without grave goods.512 Both men and women were identified

among the bodies, as well as probably five children. Osteological analyses determined

that the age of death ranged between 14 and 50 years, with a rough average of 27, thereby

suggesting that the necropolis involved the burial of a family group instead of a warrior

class.

The most striking feature of this necropolis was the large number (at least 25) of

supra-lifesize statues that were erected either on or near the graves. The two main

categories of statuary were boxers and warriors, but their appearance draws explicitly on

the iconographic traditions of bronzetti statuettes. Significantly, a substantial number of

small nuraghe models were also found in the vicinity of the necropolis, and in the dump

(dating to the third century BCE) that covered the graves were whole and fragmented

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509 Zucca 1984; Barreca 1985: 81; Ibid. 1986: 304.510 This is best attested in the area around Oristano, based on the heavy survey research conducted by Nieddu and Zucca (1991), Tore (1991b),Van Dommelen (1998: 109) and Tronchetti and Van Dommelen (2005). 511 Bernardini/Tronchetti 1990a: 214; Tronchetti 1986b: 47.512 Tronchetti 1981. Tomb 25 offers the single example of an assemblage, consisting of bronze beads, another bead in rock crystal, and a scarab seal in bone or ivory of pseudo-Hyksos type (end 7th c). Other isolated glass paste beads were found in three other tombs.

betyls, broken pots, and fragments of bronze objects.513 A hut stands near the necropolis,

about 20 meters to the southwest of the graves, and another, much larger round structure

in which late Punic and Roman votive offerings were left lies a bit further beyond that.

Two other nuraghi and a village are nearby as well; in one of these (nuraghe Cann’e

Fadosu), the excavators recovered another nuraghe model.514

By the mid- to late sixth century BCE, the number of sanctuaries still in use from

the Late and Final Bronze Ages had shrunk to six. In the Sulcis-Iglesies area, none of the

earlier sanctuaries remained occupied in the sixth century. Barreca’s surveys of the Monte

Sirai hinterland identified 40 sites, only eight of which were postulated as being related to

religious activity.515 For all eight, however, Barreca believed they were sites of either

“Punic” (broadly and/or vaguely defined) or “Punicized” cult, even though five of the

eight were located over nuragic remains. A reprised survey of these sites with a greater

eye towards both nuragic and Punic chronologies would be a most welcome addition to

the scholarship.

The evidence for sixth-century indigenous religious activity is slightly better

documented further to the north and in the interior. At Santa Vittoria, pottery suggests that

use of the sanctuary continued into the sixth century, and there are also very late traces of

Punic and Roman presence. “Sixth-century” sherds were also recovered from Su Putzu,

but we do not know what part of the century they belong to. Around Oristano, the sixth

century is not as well documented at Cuccuru S’Arriu than either the seventh-century

phase or the later centuries. However, the five Punic stelai that were deposited there dated

between the late fifth- and early fourth century, suggesting that the sanctuary had at least

started to attract Punic visitors at some point before 400 BCE. Building phases are

difficult to disentangle at San Salvatore, but it seems likely that it too became part of the

Punic religious life on the Sinis peninsula at this point as well. Sixth-century activity has

been documented at Nuraghe Losa, but it too was abandoned around 500.

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513 Tronchetti 1986b: 41-43.514 Tronchetti 1988: 76.515 Barreca 1966: 136-68; Ibid. 1967: 107-26.

After 500 BCE, there is a almost total hiatus in the use of older sanctuaries in the

study area. In short, it is very difficult to identify a solidly “indigenous” presence in

Sardinia, particularly in religious practice, that maintains its existence between about 500

and 325 BCE. What happens during this time is unclear, even in terms of whether this

gap in the archaeological record for indigenous religious activity is due to visibility issues

or larger, more substantive developments. In describing the distribution patterns of sites

in the Marmilla, for instance, Van Dommelen has remarked that the variability in

archaeological visiblility of sites in that region is at least partly due to post-depositional

processes such as erosion and intensive agriculture. The lower visibility of these sites

could also be due to more systemic interpretive problems similar to those that have

recently been proposed for other parts of the Mediterranean also with archaeological

hiatuses. Tackling the sixth-fifth-century BCE gap in both the archaeological and

historical record for Crete, Brice Erickson has, for example, shown that the supposed

“Cretan hiatus” during the late Archaic and Classical period is largely due to the lack of

an established, regional pottery sequence for the period between 550 and 350 BCE.

Problems such as a lack of “clean” stratigraphy, an over-attention to metal goods, and too

much emphasis on Crete’s ties to the Near East had completely obscured the fact that the

sequence of ceramic goods being deposited at one of the major Cretan sanctuaries was

uninterrupted. Erickson’s study thus challenges and disrupts the standard view that Crete

experienced a major break in the late Archaic and Classical periods as it entered a long

phase of isolationism. Analogous problems have also been documented for the Greek

mainland, although for a slightly earlier time period.

Studies like these and others have shown that hard looks at the evidence often

make lacunae in the archaeological record go away. Indeed, it is not implausible that

analogous types of problems could also be culpable for the Sardinian gap. As I stated at

the beginning of this chapter, an ongoing problem for scholars studying the transitional

phases of Sardinian history is that the lack of a solid nuragic pottery sequence makes it

difficult to distinguish chronological phases at sites without Greek, Phoenician, or

Etruscan imports. This problem would only be magnified if there were, in fact, shifts in

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religious practice, such as in the substitution of metal votives for less conspicuous

materials as occurred in Greece and other parts of the Aegean during the Archaic period.

The hiatus could hypothetically also be due something similar to what seems to

have happened in Sicily at the end of the sixth century, when various parts of both eastern

and western Sicily seem to have engaged in a process of synoikism and somewhat

dramatic population shifts. Synoikism has not been explicitly proposed for indigenous

settlement patterns in the sixth century, but the conventional attribution of the sudden

drop-off in the Archaic and Classical Sardinian indigenous material to the “advent of the

Carthaginians” would theoretically have archaeologically manifested itself in a similar

way. The ancient sources say that around 550 BCE, Carthage, feeling that their

commercial interests in the island were threatened by the increased presence of Ionian

Greeks in the area, intervened in Sardinia and sent in troops led by the Carthaginian

general Malchus. The texts go on to say that Malchus then engaged in war with an

unspecified enemy. Archaeological work has shown that some of both the Phoenician

and nuragic settlements have destruction levels dated to the mid-sixth century, an

indication of at least some widespread, violent interchange across communities. But, it

remains unclear as to who exactly the opponents were, with hypothetical match-ups

ranging from either Carthage openly attacking the Phoenician coastal towns to a

Phoenician-Punic coalition attacking nuragic settlements and their subsequent retaliation,

or to a situation in which all of the groups were engaged in frequently-changing alliances,

with no over-arching bond of either ethnic or cultural allegiance.

According to this standard interpretation, the Carthaginian arrival in the sixth

century thus drove the nuragic population of Sardinia further inland. Yet, if this was the

case, some level of demographic growth or at least a longer rate of site occupation should

be documented at the indigenous settlements further in the interior. There is some

evidence supporting this claim. The village around nuraghe Su Mulinu-Villanovafranca

was mostly abandoned at the end of the eighth century, but there are signs that the

nuraghe itself was occasional occupied during the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. Even

then, however, the site still came to be completely abandoned towards the end of the sixth

209

century and remained so until about 300 BCE. Evidence that any sites grew significantly

in compensation for the steep levels of abandonment at other settlements is equally

scrappy. A few sites in the more interior reaches of the case study area show site

aggrandizement around the end of the seventh or early sixth century BCE. Su Nuraxi-

Barumini, for example, was a site that supported at least 100 people during its Archaic

phase, which seems to be a slight increase from the number of previous Iron Age

residents. But, this small amount of growth can hardly reasonably account for the

corresponding contraction noted at nearly every site surrounding it.

The hiatus in the late sixth- and fifth centuries is, moreover, espcially complicated

by the fact that a resurgence of religious activity at old nuragic cult centers, and most

particularly at well sanctuaries, beginning in the fourth century BCE. As Van Dommelen

points out, much of the fourth-century material associated with these sanctuaries hearkens

back to Iron Age products and the mix of these traditional items with other Punic and

Hellenistic forms of material culture-- the kernophoros and terracotta figurines of female

deities in particular-- demonstrates a process of hybridization that was articulated to

varying degrees by local groups working in their own social and cultural networks.516

Reconciling this sudden hybridization with what was, in some cases, a hiatus in religious

activity of four hundred years yet again raises some concern.

One thing that will clearly help elucidate this problem more fully, but that is

currently outside of the scope of this project, is to expand the study area beyond its

current boundaries and investigate the developments in indigenous settlements in the

eastern and northern parts of the island. There is some evidence already that the pattern

observed in the central-southwestern area in which old nuraghi were converted into cult

areas is relevant in these other areas as well. In addition, some very different religious

contexts existed in this area as well, perhaps signifying that they were able to sustain

themselves longer than religious areas in west Sardinia.

Conclusions

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516 Van Dommelen 1998: 153-55.

For now, I want to return to my original question of how indigenous Sardinians

responded to “colonial religion” after the arrival of the Phoenicians in the eighth century.

There are two general points that I think stem from the discussion carried out in this

chapter. First, nuragic religion shows an unusual level of internal organization,

consistency, and visibility for the period that precedes the colonial arrival. The state of

Sardinian religious organization stands out not only among the different societies of the

west Mediterranean, but of the Mediterranean basin in general. Particular forms of ritual

practice, symbolism, expression, and architecture had widespread currency among

nuragic communities, suggesting that an individual would have been able to participate in

basically the same rituals from one area to the next. This similarity seems to extend even

into the more ambiguous area of religious beliefs, ideology, and divinities: across

Sardinia, there was a strong emphasis on fertility, water, and the life-death cycle, all

things, of course, that are rather interconnected in themselves. Some of the bronzetti

depict individuals who with their four eyes and four arms can only be explained as

supernatural entities; certain betyls that had their upper register carved with holes have

been interpreted as more schematic representations of this same deity.

As many scholars have pointed out, the sophisticated and highly structured nature

of nuragic religion was intricately tied up in the broader political structure of nuragic

villages. This system (pre-)existed independent of the Phoenician colonial system, and

was constituted by a regional and supraregional hierarchy of complex nuraghi versus

single-tower nuraghi versus isolated villages, with complex nuraghi representing local

foci of political and economic organization and secondary sites lying under their

mantle.517 Socially, indigenous Iron Age Sards belonged to a highly ranked society that

used religious material culture and ritual activities in various ways to express and

sacralize political authority, particularly in the definition and consolidation of elite status.

Understanding the distribution of religious areas, their chronology, and the

hierarchy among them is a key part of gauging how nuragic religion and society changed

during the late Iron Age and whether such changes should be interpreted as responses to

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517 Webster 1996: 171-74. Van Dommelen 1998: 107.

the Phoenician presence. Within the study area, there were three sanctuary-complexes

(Sant’Anastasia, Santa Vittoria, and Santa Cristina) that, based on their inclusion of a

sacred well, a meeting-hut, and a festival enclosure or other space used for large

gatherings, must have served supra-regional purposes. Below this group were several

stand-alone meeting huts or meeting-hut/sacred well sites that must have aimed for

similar goals, but did not host festivals or other larger-scale gatherings. In both of these

first two categories, political and religious authority were combined by the co-option of

very traditional ritual and political symbols and the implementation of religious practices

(votive dedication and sacrifice, in particular) that were used in non-elite ritual contexts

within a very restricted setting. These “central places” of religious activity, which were

almost perfectly distributed every 21 kilometers, served as settings for elite internal

competition through the display of vast amounts of wealth and for the consecrated

affirmation of their exclusive status above others.518

This structured system, however, did not go unchallenged. As Van Dommelen has

pointed out, the late Iron Age in Sardinia seems to be a period of increasing social

stratification.519 All parts of southwestern Sardinia show signs of a newly emerging elite,

as evidenced by the growth of single burials and the wider dispersion of bronzetti, as well

as Iron Age visitation of older Tombe di Giganti. The Iron Age elite grave goods that

appear in the communal tombs at Motrox’e Bois and Settimo San Pietro, for example,

perhaps indicate the existence of a new category of individuals who were ‘elite’ within

their immediate community but who could not extract themselves from the immediacy of

local situations to participate in the more regional, upper-level elite culture. The

proliferation of smaller well-sanctuaries not associated with the traditional “central

places” or with meeting huts can also perhaps be seen as other types of responses to

changes in nuragic social structure. Almost none of these lower-level sacred wells have

produced metal or other luxury items and evidence for sacrifice is rare, suggesting that

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518 I based this calculation on the nine documented examples of meeting huts in the study area plus three others that Van Dommelen suggests as likely candidates and that have produced Final Bronze/early Iron Age material. The actual distance between a handful of sites --those near Barumini-- was actually much smaller, but this is perhaps due to the fact that the meeting hut at Barumini only developed after at least two of the others have gone out of use.519 Van Dommelen 1998: 103.

they were more closely related to non-elite religious worship or, if elites did worship at

them, they were not deemed as appropriate places for the conspicuous display of status or

wealth. As smaller sanctuaries began to flourish, moreover, many of the older complex

sanctuaries started to decline, suggesting that there was a simultaneous shift in the

concept of religious authority and who had access to it.

Some sites must have fallen more in the middle of this spectrum, and these, I

would argue, were the sites that really became places where the rising social class could

directly challenge the established system. The cave shrine at Pirosu-Su Benatzu is

perhaps the best example of this changing scene. The votive items found inside the shrine

seem to indicate that the worshipers came from a rather broad swathe of society. While

luxury items like the gold ornaments and a very fine bronze tripod allude to an elite

presence in the sanctuary, the handmade pots and lamps may have been offerings of less

elite worshippers. Tools, weapons, and smaller, cruder bronze items were common as

well, and may indicate that the less elite were trying to speak the same ritual language,

even if it meant changing some of the words.

The second general point pertains more directly to what happens after the

Phoenicians arrived. If we examine site occupation after the end of the eighth century

BCE, those sites categorized as “sacred” generally endure for longer than other types of

nuragic sites, such as simple nuraghi, complex nuraghi, tombe di giganti, and settlements.

This discrepancy in the occupational history has not been completely overlooked in the

scholarship, but has not been emphasized either, particularly in regards to sanctuaries that

continued to be frequented after settlements nearby were abandoned. But, this

observation of protracted occupation must be qualified even so: though sacred sites

generally outlasted other sites, their numbers still dropped, particularly after the mid-

seventh century BCE.

The correspondence between this drop-off in sanctuary usage and the customary

date for the settlement of the Phoenicians on the southern and western coasts cannot, I

argue, be merely coincidence. Van Dommelen has argued that, “because [the indigenous

settlement system] had already emerged in the 9th century BC...it represented an

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indigenous development which evolved independently of colonial interference. The same

holds for its subsequent transformation at the turn of the 8th-7th centuries BC, that is well

after the disappearance of most indigenous settlements from the coastal areas.”520 The

destruction of Sant’Anastasia at Sardara is an obvious example of these indigenous

developments, most likely the result of internal disputes amongst warring nuragic

territories. But, as I showed above, the destruction of Sant’Anastasia is somewhat

exceptional and overall, many nuragic sacred areas continue to be used. 521 Thus, while

the interpretation is a valuable one for nuragic settlement patterns overall, it actually fails

to account for the fact that sanctuaries remained occupied, even along the coastal areas.

Moreover, by emphasizing endogenous causes and Bronze Age rootedness, it overlooks

the rather simple fact that shortly after colonies were founded amongst what was,

assuredly, a very elaborate, well-established indigenous system, material signs of

indigenous religious activity increasingly became less concentrated, less visible, and less

likely to leave permanent traces in the archaeological record. This was indeed, I argue, a

“response” to colonial religion, although not one that traditional models of colonialism or

colonial influence normally include.

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520 Ibid.: 107.521 It should be noted that both Webster (1996: 110-125) and Van Dommelen (1998: 101-105) have recognized that sites in the interior, such as Santa Vittoria-Serri, Su Nuraxi-Barumini, and Su Mulinu continued to be inhabited, and have argued that the settlement hierarchy of the interior remained virtually intact. My argument differs from theirs in that it recognizes that nearly all sanctuaries continued to be used to some extent after the colonization period, but that shortly after colonization, their occupation rate started to decline.

Chapter 5

Greek colonial religion in central-western Sicily: religion and the creation of

colonial poleis

Introduction

I try to do three main things in this chapter. The first is to provide a detailed

synthesis of the religious developments from three separate Greek colonial settlements in

central-western Sicily. The second is to use this synthesis in conjunction with the material

correlates of religious activity to construct a general idea of Greek colonial religion that

can then be compared with Phoenician colonial religion. For some time now, Greek

religion has been examined as something uniquely bound up with the civic construction

of the polis; many believe them, in fact, to be inseparable. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood,

for example, describes the relationship between religion and the Greek polis as one of

total interdependency: “The Greek polis articulated religion and was itself articulated by

it; religion became the polis’ central ideology, structuring, and giving meaning to, all the

elements that made up the identity of the polis, its past, its physical landscape, the

relationship between its constituent parts.”522 If the Greek polis was somewhat of a

unique experiment in antiquity and it both “articulated religion and was itself articulated

by it,” then Greek religion was itself unique and particular to the unusual institutions and

ideology embodied by the polis. Without comparing Greek religious organization more

directly with other religious systems, however, it is impossible to fully validate this

claim. The western Mediterranean may thus provide an ideal setting for testing these

questions.

The third thing that I try to do in this chapter is to make an argument for why we

need to be looking more closely at colonial religious contexts. Studies of (mostly Greek)

colonial religion have been, in large part, art historical, but since the late 1980s there has

been a growing interest in examining the relationship between the settlement of colonies

and the establishment of sanctuaries.523 This is no small feat, but the additional study of

215

522 Sourvinou-Inwood 2000: 22.523 Cf. De Polignac 1995; Malkin 1987: 135-86; Asheri 1988; Carter 1990.

how religion functioned in the socio-political development of the colonies and their

regional setting still has yet to be fully explored.

Two things that are especially necessary for doing include firmer chronological

groundwork and more attention to religious practice. Many past studies have glossed over

the chronological evolution of western Greek sacred spaces, but misreading the

chronology jeopardizes both historical relevance and interpretive acuity. Early religious

activity in the Greek colonies was generally modest, with some sanctuaries existing

simply as places of open-air cult up to three generations after a city’s original foundation.

Likewise, while monumentality and sanctuary location should by no means be

overlooked, they ought to be seen in conjuction with the material for religious practice.

This involves using literary, epigraphic, and iconographic sources to make informed

interpretations of the material recovered from the sanctuaries and what that says about the

practitioners who left it there. Only by understanding the way that religion functioned

within the colonies is it possible to understand how indigenous societies responded to it.

In the rest of this chapter, I look at the religious developments of the three major

Greek colonies in central-western Sicily--Himera, Selinus, and Akragas--dividing the

evidence into three chronological periods. A synthetic approach is taken as a way of

comparing religious customs amongst the colonies themselves, which can then be judged

against the material from non-Greek sites. Lest the data become exclusively descriptive, I

end the chapter by situating the colonial religious material against the ideological concept

of the Greek polis.

Historical background and religious developments between 650 and 550 BCE

All of the Greek settlements in central-western Sicily were part of the “subsidiary

colonization” movement of the seventh century BCE. Literary sources relate how either

because of demographic pressure or civic tensions, groups left the eastern Greek Sicilian

cities and settled anew parts of the island further west. Selinus and Himera were probably

both settled around between the mid- to late-seventh century BCE, while Akragas was

216

founded slightly later in the early sixth century (see Table 5-1).524 Thucydides gives the

foundation story of each settlement, beginning with where each group came from and

sometimes, though not always, proffering reasons why. In the Thucydidean account,

Himera was settled by Zankleans (modern Messina), along with a group of Syracusan

exiles (the Myletidai); Selinus by Megarians from both Sicily and mainland Greece, all

led by the Greek Pamillos; and Akragas by Geloans, led by the two oikistai, Aristonous

and Pystilus.525

Site Literary foundation date

Place of origin Oikist First Greek material

Himera 649/8 BC (Thuc. VI.5.1; Diod. 13.62.4)

Zankle, Syracusan exiles (Myletidai)

Simos, Sacos, and Euclides

Sporadic evidence of a 7th c. settlement in the coastal plain below the upper plateau near the estuary of the Himera river (see Vassallo 1997: 85-90)

Selinus 628/7 BCE vs. 651/0 BCE (Diod xiii.59.4)

Megara Hyblaea and Megara

Pammilos tombs with Protocorinthian pottery (c. 650 BC) (see De Angelis 2003: 124).

Akragas 580 BCE (Thuc. VI.4.4) vs. 576 BCE (Pind. Oly. 2.166-69).

Gela, Rhodes perhaps

Aristonous and Pystillus

Votive material on the western part of the hill of temples and graves in the Montelusa cemetery (see Waele 1971: 88-97; De Miro 1988: 240-44).

Figure 5-1. Literary foundation accounts of Himera, Selinus, and Akragas

The motivations for settlement and the rationale for their location vary for each

colony and continue to be debated in the scholarship. The foundation of Himera has been

construed as an overtly political and to some extent cultural statement on behalf of the

217

524 As several recent scholars have pointed out, the dual dating system for Greek colonial settlements does not dictate an either-or situation and could instead indicate several phases within the foundation process. Michel Gras (1986), Roger Wilson (1982: 101), and Lorenzo Braccesi (1995), for example, both suggest that Thucydides records the “final” stage in the foundation of Selinus—perhaps the point at which mainland Megarian settlers arrived as reinforcements?—while Diodorus captures the initial period of settlement. Morris (1996) also highlights the risks of circular reasoning in colonial dating systems, particularly for the application of Thucydides’ dates to the archaeological material.525 The literary tradition, of course, varies and none of the foundation accounts are unequivocally supported by the archaeological record. For alternate dating, see the table above. Other sources, however, state that at least part of the colonists came directly from Rhodes, one of Gela’s Aegean mother-cities. T.J. Dunbabin (1948: 310) interpreted this oscillation in the literary record as evidence that Akragas was settled by both Gela and Rhodes, with the two founders each representing one of the cities.

Greeks, a stance now modified to being seen as a strategic attempt by Greek settlers to

establish themselves as a mediating point between the Phoenicians and Etruscans and

their trading routes.526 The establishment of Selinus, on the other hand, has mostly been

thought to stem from overcrowding at Megara Hyblaea, with the choice of Selinus-- a site

in the far west of Sicily-- dictated by either the heavy indigenous presence or the weight

of Geloan influence along the southern coast. Population control may have played a role

in the settlement of Akragas as well, though the rapid rise of Selinus and the potential

threat it posed to Gela’s interests was perhaps a more immediate motivation for Gela’s

colonial venture.

The local setting in which these Greek colonies came to be established varied

somewhat significantly. All of the sites have evidence of earlier non-Greek occupation,

although it was more intense in certain areas than others. Excavations at Himera have

revealed an indigenous Copper Age settlement underneath the Greek city, while surveys

in the surrounding territory have identified signs of indigenous settlement both prior and

contemporary to the city’s foundation. At Selinus, Rallo’s excavations on the Manuzza

plateau identified a native settlement that contained purely indigenous material dating to

the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, plus the remains of two huts.527 Minute quantities

of indigenous pottery were also found in the lowest layers of both the acropolis and the

Gaggera hill, indicating some degree of native presence there as well.528 These finds have

suggested that a native village, perhaps made of several nuclei, pre-existed the Greek

settlement at Selinus.529 A substantial amount of indigenous Iron Age (Sant’Angelo

Muxaro-style) pottery fragments have moreover come out of early Archaic layers from

almost all the sectors in the “upper city.”530 The site of Akragas was occupied from the

Neolithic on, with a particularly rich period during the Middle Bronze Age.

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526 Nicola Bonacasa (1992: 133), for example, has claimed that Himera represented Greek interests in a ‘barbarian’ world, occupied by both native and Phoenician populations.527 Rallo 1976-77: 722-24.528 For the acropolis, see Fourmont 1981: 8-9. For the Gaggera, see Gabrici 1927: 344; S. Tusa 1982.529 Parisi Presicce 1984: 27.530 Most interestingly, one of these sectors includes that of Temple A on the Himeran Plateau, in the early layers of which excavators discovered a votive deposit that included an oinochoe most similar to jugs found at the indigenous settlement of Sabucina (Vassalo 1996: 200-01).

Archaeological remains under several of the city’s Archaic sanctuaries led early

excavators to believe that indigenous groups were living there when the colonists arrived

and to hypothesize a rather grand narrative of cultic continuity that extended from the

Neolithic up into the Roman empire.531 The levels, however, were later shown to be much

earlier and a hiatus in occupation between the eighth and early sixth century BCE seems

fairly assured at this point.532

The settlements took advantage of the natural topography and environmentally-

imposed boundaries. Himera spread out over a high plateau overlooking the Himera river

valley, situating its earliest and most important sacred area at the tallest point. The site of

Selinus is situated over three hills, separated by two river valleys which flowed from the

north into the sea. Religious areas developed in nearly every part of the city, from the

acropolis, located on the southern half of the central hill, to the east, across the Cotone

river on the “Marinella” hill, and to the west, also across a river (the Modione) and along

the “Gaggera” plateau.533 Akragas developed over a series of ridges that rose

incrementally from the coast in an area between the Hypsas and Akragas rivers. Like

Selinus, religious areas arose in both the civic center of the site and at its margins,

particularly in areas where the northern and eastern rocky cliffs of the Girgenti plateau

dropped off.

The first phase of religious activity at these three sites spans the period between

650 and 550 BCE and relates mostly to relates to open-air religious activity.534 At

Himera, the highest part of the Himeran plateau was left free of homes or other structures

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531 See, for example, the fantastic explanation of the “Sanctuary of Chthonic Gods” by Marconi (1933) in Agrigento Arcaica.532 Marconi (1929: 25; 1933) believed the “santuario rupestre” to have been an indigenous sanctuary prior to the Greeks arrival, but the date of the material has now been lowered to the mid-6th century (Siracusano 1983).533 In the 6th century, the Selinuntines took these distinctions in the natural topography as an organizing principle for the site, laying out two grid plans with different orientations.534 Like all chronological paramenters, the divisions I make in this chapter are somewhat arbitrary, corresponding a bit imperfectly to the internal developments of each city. The argument could be made, for example, that the first phase of religious activity at Selinus should really be limited to the period before the installation of the town plan, a historical moment that has been securely dated to c. 580/570 BCE. Limiting the chronological scope to this date, however, creates a logistical dilemma in how to effectively compare the developments at Selinus to those at Himera and Akragas. For my purposes, the mid-6th century cut-off offers more benefits than drawbacks, particularly since it also corresponds to developments at both Phoenician and indigenous sites in the study area as well.

and a large monolithic block of limestone was set up. The upper face of the block had a

circular depression, which suggested that it may have been used as some type of support.

Traces of ash and seventh-century ceramics were found at layers corresponding to the

base of the block, suggesting probably some degree of sacrificial and perhaps votive

activity. Another area in the northern quarter of the plateau may have also been used for

open-air cult, although the evidence for the Archaic phase is quite fragmentary: Middle

Corinthian ceramics and other remains were mixed in with sixth-century materials,

potentially indicating that ritual practice had started during the late seventh century

BCE.535

Similar traces of activity were found at Selinus, most concretely in three separate

parts of the Gaggera hill.536 The layers below the “Malophoros” sanctuary attest to heavy

use of the area, concentrated especially around an “autel primitif” placed on virgin soil

with signs of intense burning and a number of hearths nearby.537 Pottery fragments,

including the handle of an Early Corinthian (640-625 BCE) columned krater, lay on the

top of the “autel.” Great quantities of intact and shattered pots, dating between 640 and

580 BCE and consisting of large amounts of table wares, and the mostly non-functional,

symbolically-signficant miniature kotylai were present throughout the layer.538 Also from

this context came statuettes, small animal figurines, and ornamental objects and

fragments of an offering table.539

At the two other areas-- also in places that later were built up with temples,

Temple M and the ‘Heraion’-- no physical structures were present for the earliest levels

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535 It should be noted that the use of this space pre-dates the designation of the quarter as residential.536 Over half of the sanctuaries at Selinus could not be associated with a solid stratigraphy, due to the combination of the city’s prolonged occupation, its destructions, and natural erosion. This is particularly true for the temples on the acropolis and Marinella hills. It is possible, then, that early, open-air religious activity could have taken place in these contexts as well, but there is no material evidence currently available.537 First published by Gabrici (1927: 144-49) and fully described by Dewailly (1992: 3-5).538 Early and Middle Corinthian imports were particularly well attested: they constitute nearly seventy percent of the entire ceramic assemblage, a pattern that is unparalleled elsewhere at Selinus. The prevalence of plates and cups within the assemblage can even be recognized in Gabrici’s early excavation reports, where those items were described as “numerous” while other vessel forms and objects were itemized (see Appendices 1 and 2).539 It is difficult to make out whether these materials all belong to one deposit (as Gabrici believed) or whether they were just the residual accumulation of material used in other activities. Cf. Gabrici 1927: 126; Dewailly 1992: 5.

underneath the sanctuaries, but layers of ash, black fatty earth, and pottery fragments

were documented. In the area of the Heraion, the pottery almost exclusively consisted of

kotylai, the ubiquitous drinking cups of the late seventh century BCE. Numerous

fragments of metals and terracotta statuettes were associated with them as well. The

layers under Temple M contained a wider range of vessel forms-- varieties of cups,

aryballoi, and lamps-- as well as flakes of flint, bronze fragments, carbonized wood, and

burnt and unburnt bone, all of which have been described as attesting to “an occupation

of the site, characterized by “ritual meals” and sacrifices, in a period preceding the

construction of the temple building.”540

Open-air religious activity also preceded some of the religious buildings at

Akragas, although naturally a bit later in accordance with the settlement’s later

foundation date. Most of the evidence comes from the western end of the “Valley of

Temples,” on the lower ridge of the city.541 Figurines of seated and standing females,

including two wooden xoana, were found in deposits near the later temple of Herakles

and in the westernmost part of the hill that overlooks the Colimbetra valley.542 Burnt

sherds and fragmentary remains were also noted in the lower layers of the area near the

temple of Olympian Zeus.543 Seventh-century and early sixth-century sherds found in the

foundation trenches of the tempietto in antis of the Gate V sanctuary perhaps indicate that

it too was used for open-air cult. To the south of the city, various tablewares and one

extraordinary deposit of bronzes inside an indigenous, Sant’Angelo Muxaro-style pithos

indicate that the area of the Sant’Anna sanctuary also had an open-air phase. De Miro

described the deposit as “un vero e proprio ‘thesauros’” and hypothesized that it was

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540 Pompeo 1999: 50-51. “...una frequentazione del sito, caratterizzata da ‘pasti rituali’ e sacrifici, in un’epoca precedenta la construzione dell’edificio templare.” Trenches dug by Sguaitamatti and Meli both showed that the foundation trench for the temple cut an occupation layer that extended to the exterior of the structure.541 De Miro 1992: 152.542 De Miro 1962: 52-53; fig. 1, 2. From this area also came the only known indigenous fragment (Sant’Angelo Muxaro style) from the urban area of Akragas. 543 Gabrici (1925: 425-434) recorded fragments of “large vessels,” terracottas, and a bronze figurine of a boar that date to this period found in the fill layer.

originally associated with an early sixth-century sanctuary and a wooden predecessor to

the stone structure.544

The open-air phase at Akragas is most concretely demonstrated in the area that

later developed as the sanctuary to the chthonic gods. Between 580 and 550 BCE,

numerous statuettes and busts of a female figure were left around a pair of stone

structures, one rectangular and one round. The rectangular structure was made out of tufa

blocks and showed signs of prolonged burning, while the round one had a wide hole that

was filled with soil and pottery fragments. The coupling of the two structures and their

related finds suggested their use as altars, one for burnt sacrifice and the other for liquid

offerings.

By c. 600 BCE, the open-air cult areas at Himera and Selinus began to transform

into distinct areas that were physically demarcated from their surroundings, made use of

monumental, specialized architecture and decorative elements, attracted prestigious

movable material culture, and hosted different types of ritualized behavior. At Himera, a

new bipartite building measuring 15.75 x 6.04 meters was built just to the southwest of

and on the same alignment with the pre-existing limestone block, and was surrounded by

a temenos wall. Only the foundation course of “Temple A” still remains, but it is clear

from both its alignment and from traces of an enclosure wall that its construction was part

of a wider reorganization of the city aimed at regularizing the street system and urban

spaces into more uniform blocks.545 Various luxury items (bronze armbands, votive

shields, phialai, and spearpoints, and three buccheroid alabastra) and symbolically-

significant goods (a faience amulet, oil vessels in the shape of a silenus and a sheep), all

of which dated to the late seventh-/early sixth century BCE, were deposited in the

foundation and occupation layers of the building.546 Especially significant were statuettes

representing an offerent and Athena Promachos that were found in separate corners of the

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544 De Miro 1992: 153. The deposit inside the indigenous pithos has led some scholars (cf. Fiorentini 1969: 75) to label the S. Anna sacred area a “Greek-indigenous sanctuary,” while the original excavators believed that the choice of an indigenous pot to hold the sanctuary’s treasury perhaps signified an act of respectful recognition, conservation, and integration of a pre-existent indigenous sanctuary545 Allegro and Vassallo 1992. 546 Bonacasa 1970: 89-93, 116-19.

building and an amazing gold plaque depicting a Gorgon in relief found underneath a slab

at the exact center of the shrine.

Elsewhere at Himera, the northern quarter maintained its open-air nature, while

another cult area developed in the eastern quarter of the city, close to the road the

connected the plateau to the ridges below. Most of the evidence for the initial phases of

this “eastern quarter urban sanctuary” was destroyed by later construction, but a thick

layer of material containing pottery, numerous lamps, and two heads from terracotta

statuettes lay underneath the Classical floor of “Room 39.” Two small altars, both with

central cavities, that were inserted into the floor seem to confirm the ritual nature of the

space, at least by the beginning of the sixth century BCE.

At Selinus, two distinct areas were built along the northern and southern margins

of the acropolis for religious-like activities. In the northern sector, an elongated (15.95 x

5.64 m.) bipartite building (now labeled the “tempietto con acroterii a spirale”) along

with a building complex of four rooms (14.9 x 9.5 m.) and a large altar were built inside

an early enclosure wall by 600 BCE.547 In the southern sector, a late seventh-/early sixth-

century structure preceded the massive Temple C (of later date).548 The evidence for the

structure—primarily a group of large roof terracottas found near the later acropolis

temenos—suggests that the temple’s dimensions were substantial.549 A large altar just

inside the main entrance of the later sanctuary probably goes with this early temple, as

perhaps do a few other structures, perhaps rooms used for holding offerings or as priest-

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547 The “temenos wall” was a wall of blocks that ran to the south of the tempietto, the four-room complex and the altar and that was identified by Gabrici (1929: 82).548 The date of this early version of Temple C is still debated. Gabrici (1933) believed that the structure fell in the early building phase for the acropolis (628-580 BCE), and De Angelis (2003b: 129-30) follows this dating. Østby (1995: 86-87) implies that the unification of the acropolis sanctuary was dictated by the grid-organization of the Manuzza and acropolis hills, the occurrence of which archaeological work has now securely dated to around 580-570 BCE. This would mean that both Temple C and any antecedent of it would both have to date post-580/570 BCE.549 Gabrici 1933: 160-67; plates VI-XII. Indications of an earlier structure were also observed in the 19th century: see Koldewey and Puchstein 1899: 95-96.

quarters.550 The structure would have only stood for a couple of decades, as indicated by

Gabrici’s recovery of some of the terracottas in the mid-sixth-century terrace fill.551

A third late seventh-early sixth-century religious structure, “Temple E1” the

predecessor to the later Temple E, has been hypothesized for the Marinella hill.552

“Temple E1” was probably a tripartite building, perhaps measuring close to Temple E’s

final dimensions (i.e. 75 x 30 m.) and did not have a peristasis.553 No reports were made

in regards to other materials that may have been associated with this structure, nor does

the report mention related altars, secondary facilities, or enclosure walls.

In the early sixth century, the Malophoros sanctuary received its first stone

building, the so-called “megaron,” built on the same axis as the preexisting altar and on

top of a fill or foundation layer full of fragmentary statuettes and Early and Middle

Corinthian pottery.554 Two new altars were built in front of the structure and an enclosure

was added to its northeastern façade. Gabrici believed that the enclosure was uncovered

and later scholars have termed it an “early temenos” used to make the eastern façade

appear more imposing.555 Another annex with a dense layer of objects inside it--perhaps a

depository of display room for votives-- and at least two wide basins was adjoined to the

enclosure. The spatial distribution of these materials suggests an addition to the primary

cult focus of the sanctuary from the preceding period. Whereas earlier when activity

involving mostly table and drinking wares had concentrated around the “autel primitif,”

by 580/570 BCE other areas such as the enclosure or “early temenos” were being

frequented and attracted different types of material culture, notably oil/perfume

containers, statuettes, ornamental objects, and iron implements (see details in Appendix

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550 The problem with this assessment, however, is that the temenos wall that abuts the altar’s southern side is contemporary with Selinus’ town plan, i.e. 580-570 BCE. Di Vita (1967: 40-41) has proposed that the two altars were both built for the mid-6th c Temple C and were contemporary, but Østby counters that the differences in their building material and technique makes this suggestion questionable. The proposition that the rooms just to the east of the acropolis entrance are offering rooms or priest quarters is made by Veronese et al. 2006: 517.551 See Østby 1995: 87 for reasoning.552 Gullini 1978.553 De Angelis 2003b: 131.554 Gabrici 1927: 66-73; Dewailly 1992: 8-10.555 Gabrici 1927: 70-71; Dewailly 1992: 11-12.

1).556 A “large quantity” of lamps was also found, perhaps indicating nocturnal worship

or festivities.

To the southeast, another rectangular building (16.25 x 6.76 m.) was put up over

the remains of one of the earlier open-air cult areas.557 The building was divided into a

pronaos and naos, shows no signs of a peristasis, and was not associated with a peribolos

wall during this phase. Inside the innermost part of the building was an “atypical” altar,

composed of three square blocks, each with a hole cut into the top surface, and a long

slab placed at the bases. It’s thought that the holes supported either statues or stelai, while

the slab functioned “in guisa di piano per l’offerta” or perhaps as a place for prosthesis.558

Burnt bone covered both the internal and external surfaces of the building, indicating the

recurrence of sacrifices from the early sixth century BCE onwards, and a basin found

inside the entrance alludes to lustral washing.559 The presence of a sacrificial altar inside

the building along with large quantities of kourotrophos statuettes and loomweights found

near the altar suggested that the sanctuary was dedicated to Hera.560 Vessels of local,

Corinthian, and Ionian manufacture were found both inside and outside the building, as

were numerous fragments of metals and terracotta statuettes.561

The “Age of Sanctuaries”: religious developments between 550 and 480/70

BCE

The mid-sixth century BCE marks a signficant turning point in the material

expression of religion in the Greek-Sicilian colonies. Building activity exploded, great

amounts of wealth and labor were dedicated to the construction and patronage of

monumental temples, and religious worship seems to have intensified greatly. At Himera,

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556 Significantly, the interior of the megaron and the surrounding open area to the northwest were relatively empty. The absence of material within the building suggests that it was either regularly cleared of any deposited material or perhaps that whatever happened inside involved activities that left few material vestiges.557 S. Tusa et al. 1986.558 S. Tusa et al. 1986: 34, 44.559 S. Tusa et al. 1986: 38.560 Parisi Presicce 1985; S. Tusa et al. 1986: 36, 52-53. 561 Most of the ceramics from the Heraion are unpublished. The site reports mention, however, terracottas, metals, local pottery fragments that “sono per lo più pertinenti a recipienti da cucina e a grandi contenitori,” such as kotylai, plates, basins, kraters, cups, and oinochoai; imported kotylai, oinochoai, alabastra, cups, and two lekythoi. The ‘cooking’ wares may refer to table wares instead of vessels actually used in food preparation.

a large, tri-partite temple measuring 30.7 by 10.6 meters and accessed via a large ramp

replaced the much more modest seventh-century Temple A. Although it did not include a

peristasis, it would have still looked remarkably more distinguished than its predecessor:

it was roughly twice as large, made entirely out of limestone (with the exception of the

wooden and tiled roof), and was decorated with multicolored architectural elements and

terracotta gorgons. A new altar accompanied the new temple and as was fitting for a

temple of this size, it was large (13.9 x 5.6 m.) and was positioned directly in front of the

temple. A permanent enclosure wall also dates to this period.562 In the third quarter of the

sixth century, another structure, “Temple D” (13.75 x 6.55 m.), was added to the

complex. The variance in its form and orientation (it was a one-room structure and was

“tilted” in respect to the rest of the acropolis structures) may indicate that the building

functioned differently, perhaps as a treasury, but that remains hypothetical. Its stone

construction, terracotta palm antefixes, and inclusion inside the enclosure, however,

specify its sacred character as do inscriptions found inside the building that mention

Athena.563

The eastern quarter’s urban sanctuary was renovated around 500 BCE, but in

general the material dating to this phase documents an overall continuity in both the

area’s appearance and its ritual activities. In contrast, the old cult area in the northern

quarter was significantly restructured around the mid-sixth century BCE. A bipartite

building measuring 13.2 by 4.4 meters and associated with a small, secondary room

(“Room 24a”), an open area to the west, and a stone block with central cavity was built

over the old open-air space. Ash and burnt animal remains inside the cavity of the stone

block demonstrate its use as an altar in burnt sacrifice, while a phiale that was found on

top of it perhaps alludes to accompanying libation rituals. Various materials were found

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562 There are still some uncertainties as to the enclosure’s form, date, and exact position; a space between the settlement and the sacred area, for instance, was reserved as early as the time of the first urban plan (i.e. late 7th c.), but there are no concrete signs of a physical boundary separating the two until the second half of the sixth century.563 Manni Piraino: 266-67. Diodorus notes (v.5.3-4) that the territory of Himera was dedicated to Athena. Some scholars believe that other deities were honored in the sanctuary as well, particularly by the fifth century BCE. Veronese et al. (2006: 115) believe that the new metopal decorations depicting Herakles should be interpreted as evidence for his worship within the sanctuary. Cutroni Tusa (1984: 250-52) has also postulated the existence of other cults, particularly that of either Kronos or an eponymous deity, based on the iconography of coins.

throughout the sanctuary, with certain categories of material being concentrated into

particular areas, as shown in Figure 5-2. Drinking wares and figurines depicting a female

personage-- the two most abundant object-categories in the general sanctuary

0

15

30

45

60

Statua

ry*

Tablew

ares

Non-ta

ble w

ares

Lamps

Weig

hts

Symbo

lic ob

jects*

*

Meta

lsOth

er

Finds from the North Quarter “urban sanctuary”, 650-400 BCE

Qua

ntit

y of

cat

alog

ued

mat

eria

ls

Category of object

650-550 BCE 550-500 BCE 500-450 BCE 450-400 BCE Not Dated

Figure 5-2. Typological and chronological distribution of North Quarter "Urban

Sanctuary” assemblage. *Statuary includes masks, busts, statuettes, isolated heads, and oscilla (almost all of female figures in this case). **Symbolic objects include a temple-model, terracotta disk, and louteria.

assemblage-- were dense in the southeastern part of the sanctuary, near the altar, while

almost all of the loomweights--the third highest object-category-- were found on the

backside of the temple (“Area 30” on the plan). A fifth-century votive deposit assigns the

sanctuary to Demeter.564

! Two further sacred areas also developed on more of the outskirts of Himera after

the mid-sixth century. The first was located to the north of the plateau, near the mouth of

the Himera river (i.e. in the area of the later so-called “Temple to Victory”) while the

227

564 Bonacasa 1980: 270.

second was situated to the southwest of the city on the Tamburino plateau, separated from

the main settlement by a wide valley. Very little is known about the initial phases of these

sanctuaries. Marconi’s excavations around the “Temple of Victory” showed that the area

probably originally had a large altar, a small tempietto in antis and a type of treasury. He

dated the structures to the late sixth century BCE, based on the style of the terracotta

antefixes, but none of the other materials dated earlier than the beginning of the fifth

century.565 The limited publication of the Tamburino sacred area has made it somewhat

of a mystery as well, although similarities in the construction technique and materials of

one of its structures to those seen in Temple B suggest that it included a large building,

perhaps even a hekatompedon.566 Sporadic recoveries of Archaic pottery and terracotta

figurines show that the area was used at least from the mid-sixth century on, and two late

fifth-century louteria document its continuity up to the city’s destruction in 409 BCE.

At Selinus, the second phase of religious developments began slightly before 550

BCE, as part of the re-systemization of the city’s urban plan.567 The expansion, more

visible definition, and monumentalization of the acropolis sacred area epitomizes how

sacred areas were involved in the renovations and new conditions. The sacred areas of the

“tempietto con acroterii spirale” and the early version of temple C were replaced with a

large, unitary sanctuary, bounded to the north and south by a peribolos wall that, as Di

Vita notes, followed the new street plan and was clearly secondary to it.568 A new

megaron-temple, measuring 17.85 x 5.31 meters and comprising a main room with two

column bases plus an adyton, was the first addition to the acropolis following this new

plan.569 Another small temple, alternately called “Temple Y” or the “tempietto delle

piccoli metope,” was also built, probably during the second quarter of the sixth century

and somewhere near the acropolis sanctuary.570 Only traces of the structure survive,

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565 Perhaps thus indicating that the Archaic material was cleaned up and removed from the sanctuary at some point; see Marconi 1931a more generally for the discussion of the area, including the Archaic phase.566 Allegro and Vassallo 1992: 145; Allegro 1999: 275.567 Rallo 1976-77; 1984: 89-91 esp.; de la Genière 1981: 216 esp.; de la Genière and Rougetet 1985.568 Di Vita 1984: 11-23; see also Østby 1995: 87.569 The date of the megaron was calculated according to stylistic parallels (cf. Pace 1922), but it may have been built earlier. Bejor (1977: 450) suggests that, based on its form, it was dedicated to Demeter.570 See Østby (1995: 92) for discussion of Temple Y’s location.

mostly through a number of sculpted metopes that were found dispersed through the

temenos and reused in the fortification walls.571 The size and technique of the

architectonic fragments show that Temple Y was smaller and earlier than temple C, but

that it used an architectural and decorative style en vogue at other Sicilian sanctuaries.572

By the middle of the sixth century, a vast number of resources had been

committed towards a new and even larger version of Temple C, including a massive

artificial terrace that filled the area with about 25,000 to 30,000 cubic meters of earth and

created enough space for a monumental altar; a large stoa was also built on top of the

terrace’s retaining wall.573 The temple was a peripteral temple, measuring 71.07 by 26.62

meters, with 17 columns on the long sides and a double-colonnaded façade of six

columns as the eastern entrance, and an altar, measuring 21 meters in length, in front of

the east entrance. The temple was covered with elaborately carved and painted

architectural terracottas, the largest being an enormous Gorgon head that would have

decorated the pediment of the east façade. A series of sculpted metopes depicting popular

scenes from Greek mythology, only three of which survive, were added to the temple

slightly later.574 Apollo is thought to have been the main deity honored.

Construction may have also begun on Temple D, a hexastyle peripteral tripartite

temple dedicated perhaps to either Aphrodite or Athena located just to the northwest of

Temple C.575 De Angelis has pointed out that the primary distinction between Temples C

and D is that in the latter, the inner row of columns between the entrance of the pronaos

and the six columns of the façade are absent, meaning that Temple D’s entrance consists

more precisely of four columns in antis.576 The altar that accompanied Temple D was

built slightly off-axis from the temple, with part of it touching the southeast corner of the

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571 Mertens 1989: 143-46.572 See Giuliani (1979) for a comparison of the architectural features of Temple Y and sixth-century Syracusan temples.573 As calculated by Di Vita 1984: 14, 21; see also Østby 1995: 87-88.574 Giuliani 1979; V. Tusa 1983; the surviving metopes show Perseus killing Medusa, Herakles and the Kerkopes, and a charioteer.575 Gabrici (1956: 274-75) suggests that Temple D was begun within a decade of the construction of Temple C, while Østby argues that it may have only been begun at the close of the sixth century BCE; on the attribution of the temple to Aphrodite, see V. Tusa 1967; for Athena, see Bejor 1977: 449-50.576 De Angelis 2003b: 137.

temple. Final adjustments were made at the beginning of the fifth century BCE when the

existing acropolis sanctuary altered its polygonal shape to a (mostly) regular square and

another artificial terrace was added in order to provide a secondary entrance to the

sanctuary at the northeast corner. A new piece of peribolos wall in the area behind

Temple C connected the north- and southwestern corners of the temenos, an event dated

fairly precisely to the 490s BCE.577

Other additions on the Gaggera and Marinella hills complemented the activity on

the acropolis. On the Gaggera, a new bipartite distyle temple in antis (25.75 x 10.9 m.),

“Temple M,” was built over the old open-air cult area northeast of the Malophoros

sanctuary probably around 570/560 BCE.578 Architectural fragments show that it included

numerous polychromatic terracotta decorations, both for the roof and the architrave. The

temple was fronted by an imposing staircase and an extensive open plaza (15 x 22.8 m.)

with a large altar decorated with reliefs of the Amazonmachia.579 A conduit ran behind the

naos of the temple that either brought water into the sanctuary area that could be used for

purifications or was used for drainage.580 The sanctuary was perhaps dedicated to

Herakles—two cups from the sanctuary had the letters “HE” inscribed on them. Finds

were rather sporadic and consisted largely of fragments of amphorae, pithoi, and glazed

pottery dating to the sixth-fifth centuries BCE. A couple of female statuettes stylistically

similar to those from the Malophoros sanctuary were found around the paved area, while

other fragments, including one representing the head of a serpent, were found to the south

of the temple.581

The Malophoros sanctuary was also monumentalized. Several new structures,

including the Archaic temple (Gabrici’s “second megaron”), a monumental ashlar altar, a

water conduit and a peribolos wall, were added to the area and an additional open-air cult

place developed further to the northeast. The temple was substantially larger than the

230

577 Based on sherds found underneath the connecting wall; see Gabrici 1929: 102-103; Ibid. 1956: 217-30; de la Genière 1981: 214; Østby 1995: 96.578 Pompeo 1999.579 Ibid.: 53, 79.580 The geological matrix of the Gaggera hill made flooding frequent and adequate drainage works a necessity.581 Ibid.: 52.

earlier “first megaron” (20.2 x 9.69 m. contra 8.5 x 5.65 m.), and was built on a more

standardized tri-partite plan. The new altar, built in the same spot as the earlier “autel

primitif” and hearth structures, was huge (16.4 x 3.15 m.), and was found covered with

burnt bones and pottery, nearly all of which dated to between 580 and 525 BCE. The

most unusual cultic addition to the complex was a water conduit that brought water from

a nearby spring into the sanctuary and ended in a pool placed near the southeast corner of

the temple. The addition of this cultic feature suggests a greater emphasis on lustral and

purification rites in the sanctuary during the sixth century.

The material assemblage of the Malophoros precinct changed signficantly during

this phase as well, particularly in concurrence with the general reorganization of Selinus

around 580/70 BCE. Pots started to be outnumbered by terracotta statuettes, and the

diversity of vessel forms diminished. Statuettes and other items covered the entire surface

of the sanctuary, and piles of ex-votoes, often of a single find-type, were gathered and re-

buried in favissae.582 Excavators described the accumulation of votive material as “une

strate géologique” and “une stratification ininterrompue…partout à l’intérieur du

téménos.”583 Like in the previous phase, categories of objects tended to cluster in

particular areas. Most lamps, for example, came from an area in front of the temple (and

behind the later propylaeum), while weights and sheep astragals (an item usually

associated with rites of divination) mainly came from south of the temple; female

statuettes and busts were particularly abundant in the area to the north (Figures 5-3 and

5-4).

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582 Gabrici (1933: 123), for example, wrote that, “Non saprei spiegarmi diversamente, come in alcuni punti siansi rinvenuta solo cenere con carboni, che altrove siansi raccolte in un brevissimo spazio migliaia di gusci di lumache, altrove migliaia di astragali, altrove centinaia di tazzine ordinarie, disposte l’una dentro dell’altra a filari verticali, altrove sole statuette di terracotta, e così via.”583 Dewailly 1992: 33.

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Figure 5-3. Distribution of finds in the Malophoros sanctuary, according to context.

550-475 BCE.

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Distribution of Malophoros finds, by find type, 550-475 BCE

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Figure 5-4. Distribution of finds in the Malophoros sanctuary, according to find-type.

550-475 BCE.

232

The open-air cult area to the northeast of the Malophoros temple received a stone

temenos wall around 500 BCE, establishing it as a somewhat independent cult area inside

the general Malophoros precinct. The Meilichios sanctuary stands out mostly for the

materials that accompanied burnt sacrifices of small animals and their burial in a “field of

urns” to the west of the sanctuary temenos.584 Remains of sacrifices were gathered inside

vessels and buried along with various terracotta and metal objects, then marked with

stelai.585 Most of the vessels are fairly generic (e.g. cups and tablewares), but unlike the

rest of the Malophoros, metals were far more common. One assemblage, for example,

included two olpai, four cups, a lamp, bronze coin, iron axe, and an iron knife. Just below

this deposit was another assemblage, that according to Gabrici “può interessare dal punto

di vista religioso” consisting of an iron knife (50 cm long), two iron daggers, and a nail.

The use of votive stelai in Greek sanctuaries was fairly restricted during this period, but

the unusual appearance of the Meilichios stelai makes the sanctuary stand out all the

more.586 A male head or pair of heads (one male, one female) were often sculpted out of

the top surfaces of the stelai and in a few (very early) cases, the stelai were also inscribed.

Other features that stand out include the higher number of trapezae or offering tables (at

least 27), arulae, models of shrines or temples, and coins than contemporary sanctuaries

and significantly lower “standard” votive materials, such as statuettes, weights, aryballoi

and lekythoi, and pottery.587 The special character of the sanctuary continued to evolve in

the fifth century, when it became a central place for the dedication of lead defixiones and

prayer tablets.

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584 There are remains of a temple and portico that remain visible, but both were built later, probably at the end of the fifth century. It remains unclear as to whether they should be dated either prior to or subsequent to the destruction of 409 BCE. Gabrici believed that sacrifies were carried out on an ‘altar of three baetyls’ that he described as built directly on the sanctuary’s late sixth-century surface. However, the parallels that the altar shares with Phoenician altars raise the possibility that it should be dated to the Punic phase of the precinct.585 Gabrici’s excavations of the sanctuary provide one of the few faunal analyses from Selinus, even though most of the remains do not appear to have actually come from the sacrificial deposits. Of the bones related to sacrifice, the majority still came from sheep or goats, but with bovines, pigs, and some deer represented too. Even fewer, but still present, were bone fragments from horses, birds, and dogs.586 Gabrici 1927: 158.587Ibid.: 301-310. Depictions of trapezae on Archaic and Classical vase painting and literary references imply that small tables were usually used for offerings made by private individuals to the divinity

The development of the Marinella hill began later than either the acropolis or the

Gaggera. Temples F and G began to be built at roughly the same time during the final

quarter of the sixth century, and a new version of Temple E (E2) was begun (but never

finished). Temples F and G had similar features—both were peripteral structures with

tripartite plans— but varied in size and special features. Temple F (61.83 m x 24.43 m.)

featured a screen wall that connected the columns of the inner peristasis at about half of

the height of the columns, closing off visibility into the temple from the exterior. The

closed walls also meant that the temple was only accessible through the entrance on the

east side where worshippers also would have gathered to make sacrifices at the nearby

altar and to be in sight of the sculpted metopal scenes of the Gigantomachy. Temple F

must have been a sight to behold—it seems to have had a rich terracotta decorative

assemblage that complemented the metopal sequence. In addition, holes made in the

interconnecting wall suggest that bronze decorations were posted along the wall at

approximately eye-level. Temple F would have been, however, almost completely

overshadowed by the enormous Temple G. Its likely that the building was never

completed, but it was still one of the largest temples in the Greek world (113.34 x 54.05

m.) and with its entablature intact it would have stood over 30 meters high. It was

internally divided into a deep pronaos, naos with lateral staircases and two internal

column rows, and opisthodomos.588 Some scholars believe that Temple G had the first

opisthodomos in western Greek architecture, a fact that would be particularly significant

since Temple G’s opisthodomos may have functioned as a type of treasury. The famous

“inscription from Temple G” suggests that the honored deity was either Zeus or

Apollo.589

At Akragas, the structural manifestation of religious space happened quickly after

the colony’s settlement, primarily where open-air cult activity had already been practiced.

Two Archaic buildings-- one near the southeast corner of the temple of Zeus that had

several bronze items (figurines, miniature phialai) associated with it and another that

corresponds to the cella of the later Temple of Hephaestus-- are known only from their

234

588 Veronese et al. 2006: 514-15.589 See Calder 1963.

foundations. Structurally, they both were relatively unassuming in size and plan and were

built out of mudbrick on stone foundations. Small rectangular structures, probably altars,

were also associated with them. The Gate V sanctuary, located just to the east of these

buildings, was more impressive, having a temple in antis that was decorated with

multicolored terracottas, a small, contemporary oikos structure (probably a treasury, but

known only from cuts in the rock measuring 22.5 x 10.3 m.), and a permanent enclosure

wall. Fifth-century inscriptions found in the area refer to Demeter Oraia, supporting the

idea that, like other sanctuaries in this part of Akragas, the Gate V sanctuary was

“chthonic” in nature.590 Statuettes, loomweights, lamps, and pottery were especially

common among the remains, as shown in Figure 5-5.

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Distribution of finds in the Gate V sanctuary, Akragas, by find-type and date

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235

590 These inscriptions include a fragment from a 5th-century skyphos, with iaron inscribed on it, referring either to the sanctuary or the votive sacrality of the object; the base of a skyphos with [DAMA]TRI (cat. 958); two vessel fragments (6th-5th c), one with ÔRA (referring to the epithet ORAIA for Demeter “of the season of mietitura” or to Kore “in the flower of life” and the other saying DA Ô (Demeter Oraia); also another painted inscription on vessel with a female figure that says ÔRA[IA] (De Miro 2003: 85).

7th-6th c. BCE 550-500 BCE 500-450 BCE "5th c." BCE 450-400 BCE Undated

Figure 5-5. Distribution of finds from Gate V sanctuary, Akragas, according to find-

type and date, early sixth century BCE-400 BCE (based on data from De Miro 2003).*Symbolic objects include: arulae, louteria, part of a scarab, an astragal with lead, “valves,” a clay mould, a relief-plaque depicting a deer, part of a disk with a Gorgon head, a clay shield, and two thymiateria.**Oil includes: aryballoi, alabastra, and lekythoi. All of the weights were generically dated to the “6th-5th c.”**Other includes: phialai, which were found in both metal and terracotta form (the bronze phialai are excluded from the “metals” category), a glass paste handle.

The sanctuary of chthonic gods once again has the best evidence for this period of

religious developments at Akragas. There are signs that the large enclosure wall for the

sanctuary originated during this phase, and two large structures (“enclosures” in the site

reports) were built close to where the earlier pair of altars were, at the northern end of the

sanctuary. “Enclosure 1” was a rectangular, uncovered structure, measuring 15.52 by

11.50 meters and consisting of a series of interconnecting rooms. The westernmost room

held a small, square base and a large round structure that was similar in form to the other

earlier round altars and was filled with small vessels, lamps, intact and fragmentary

terracotta statuettes, and kernoi. Additional objects found around the square base

suggested that it was a stand used for votive display or as a support for a larger cult statue

or idol. On the eastern side of the building, another room had a square stone element with

burnt animal remains around it--probably an altar. Outside the building at the southeast

corner was another rectangular altar with a deep central opening.

The second structure, “Enclosure 2”, was slightly further south and consisted of

an elongated, unroofed rectangular tripartite building (12.95x 5.40 m.) filled with altar-

like facilities. The central room was dominated by a rectangular, monolithic altar that

stood in the middle of the room; another stone structure, composed of three stucco-

covered tufa blocks and of unclear function, stood beside it. The top surface of the

rectangular altar had been cut and inside the cut were ashes, burnt bones, mostly of young

animals (primarily of goat, sheep, and pig), some small bronze objects, and two fourth-

century BCE coins. A second, round altar with a deeply cut central cavity stood in the

northeast corner, and a third altar-type facility-- a true and proper rock-cut bothros found

236

“pieno di vasetti ed altri oggetti di ex voto, quali testine, frammenti di statuette ecc.” was

also present near the southeast corner.591 Another two altars were located outside the

building, one just in front of the entrance on the eastern side of the building and the

another along the southern wall.

By the mid-sixth century, these four sacred areas that were packed into the

western end of the “Hill of Temples” would have clearly marked out this part of the

Akragantine settlement as the center of religious activity inside the city. Between 550 and

500 BCE, however, the religious landscape of the city continued to evolve. The city’s

first hekatompedon was added to the western part of the Hill of Temples near Gate IV--

the so-called “Villa Aurea” shrine (30.55 x 10.35 m.)-- while one of the earlier open-air

sacred areas was adapted into a formal sanctuary measuring close to 4400 sq. meters

(labeled the “Colimbetra sanctuary”).592 To the north and along the main north-south

thoroughfare, a new administrative area was also developing, one of the main structures

being a bipartite temple enclosed within a sanctuary wall (labeled the “San Nicola

sanctuary”).593

Five more buildings were also added to the sanctuary of chthonic gods between

550 and 500 BCE. The first three, (“Tempietti” 1-3), were modest structures, although

their close proximity to each other may have given them a more impressive collective

appearance.594 A series of altars also came to be built in the central-western part of the

sanctuary, just to the south of “Tempietto 1.” Towards the end of the sixth century, there

was an attempt to add two more buildings to the sanctuary. They appear to have been

designed to be substantially larger than the sanctuary’s earlier tempietti (“Foundation 1,”

22.9 x 8.05 m. and “Foundation 2,” 23.45 x 10.3 m), but were never completed (thus,

their appellation as “Foundations” 1 and 2). At some point, probably in the fifth century, a

monumental altar measuring 13.50 x 4.53 meters was built up against the eastern edge of

the temenos wall. Votive material was copious in the sanctuary, but the lack of clear

237

591 Marconi 1933: 27.592 On the Villa Aurea shrine, see Marconi 1929: 46, 140-41; Veronese et al. 2006: 455-56. On the Colimbetra sanctuary, see De Miro-Fiorentini 1976-77: 424-46; Veronese et al. 2006: 467-48.593 Marconi 1926; Marconi 1929: 46; De Miro 1966.594 Marconi 1933: 32.

stratigraphic data makes it difficult to use. While Marconi described, for example, how “

“a vast quantity of detritus, fragments of votive objects, and various residual material of

life, had gathered in favissae and in the center of the round altars throughout the entire

internal space of the Sanctuary and also inside the shrines; sometimes the resulting layer,

composed of exclusively Greek objects dating between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC,

reached a height of 0.40-0.50 m,” most of the finds were lumped into a general “Archaic”

category, with only the most distinctive objects itemized in his catalog; none of the

categories of material were quantified.595 Intact and fragmented statuettes, and especially

the small, mass-produced female figurines, were extremely common. There were other

categories of material listed as well, but it is difficult to figure out even the relative

percentages of the assemblage based on the reports.596

Two other sanctuaries developed on the outskirts of Akragas, complementing the

urban religious complex on the Hill of Temples with monuments along the civic

boundaries. The first was the older, open-air Sant’Anna sanctuary. This area only

received a permanent building at the end of the sixth century when a rectangular stone

structure (26.5 x 7.5 m.) was built. It was minimally decorated, and the area on the

outside of it was filled with deposits containing clay statuettes, faunal remains, vessels,

and iron knife blades, both scattered across the precinct and gathered inside circles of

stones. The excavators supposed that the sanctuary served for “reunions of the

faithful.”597

The second sanctuary, the puzzling “santuario rupestre San Biagio,” lay to the

northeast of the urban center on a rock outcrop at the east end of the Rupe Atenea ridge

where there was a freshwater spring. Only traces remain of the sanctuary’s Archaic phase.

A cornice that was reused in a later building structure, for example, may have been

238

595 Ibid.: 41.Marconi was explicit in this method, saying that “…si è reputato inutile di redigere un vero e proprio catalogo, elencando e descrivendo ciascun esemplare. Si è reputato suficiente di riservare descrizioni particolari solo per le opere più interessanti, raccogliendo le altre in gruppi; così pure delle opere ripetute in parecchi esemplari se ne è citato e descritto uno solo” (1933: 37).596 Also present were other terracottas representing male figures, animals, and floral items, as were more exceptional items of marble and stone sculpture, bronze, and glass. In addition, at least some percentage of the large numbers of vessels found in the sanctuary—mostly small lamps, cups, jugs, aryballoi, and miniature vessels—were probably votive items.597 Fiorentini 1969: 68.

associated with a sixth-century shrine or enclosure wall and pottery fragments and

terracotta statuettes depicting a female figure, similar to those seen in the sanctuary of

chthonic gods, go back to the sixth century BCE. The rather complex architectural

ensemble (a shrine and enclosure that were connected to a spring, a system of natural

grottoes and artificially-cut tunnels) and its long occupational history, including perhaps a

Bronze or Iron Age phase of local worship, complicate interpretations of the site.598

Hypotheses have ranged from a fountain house to a place of a specifically Cretan form of

chthonic cult to a “Greek-indigenous sanctuary.”

Towards the end of the sixth century, the move towards monumentality at Akragas

became much more concrete, encapsulated by the construction of the temple of

Herakles.599 Built in a prime location directly beside the city gate that led out to the

necropolis and port, it was close to the established urban and religious center of the city

but still separate, and in a crook of an intersection between two of the city’s major

thoroughfares. The temple’s dimensions (67 x 25.34 m.) and inclusion of a Doric

peristasis distinguished it from all previous sacred buildings at Akragas, as did the fact

that it demanded more and better constructive materials, techniques and physical labor to

build. It was decorated with a fine set of painted terracotta pieces (painted sima and

geison, palmette antefixes, etc.) stylistically similar to contemporary temples in other

Sicilian cities. A monumental altar, probably as wide as the temple and about 9.5 meters

deep, was built to the east of the temple as well.

More dramatically monumental religious structures developed in other areas after

this as well. At the Colimbetra sanctuary, for example, the main “shrine” of the sanctuary

was in itself quite unassuming, but other features gave the sanctuary a striking

appearance. A massive rectangular base (measuring 20 meters in length) was built in the

center of the sanctuary, and another one of roughly circular shape (c. 5 m in diameter)

was put next to it. To the south of these structures were a series of rock-cut notches and

239

598 Siracusano 1983: 18-22, 67.599 The designation to Herakles is an eighteenth-century attribution derived from a passage of Cicero (Koldewey and Puchstein 1899: 153), but some scholars believe it to be one of the more legitimate attributions among the temples of Akragas.

holes, a portion of which were used for holding stelai.600 The relatively large open space

of the temple may have been used as a sacred grove, something that may have been a

feature of some of the other sanctuaries on the Hill of Temples as well.601 The pinnacle in

the elaboration of this sanctuary would have been an addition of a giant fishpond, seven

stadia in length, that Diodorus (xi.25.4) says was created after the victory at Himera in

480 BCE.

The Gate V sanctuary was also modified at the very end of the sixth century and

then rather continuously during the fifth century. The Archaic temple in antis continued

to be the heart of the sanctuary’s activities, but its accompanying oikos treasury was

dismantled and replaced with a room (6.35 x 4.2 m.) that held an offering or altar-table.602

A large, open plaza and an L-shaped portico (interpreted as a lesche or space for

reunions) were built to the north, delimiting the sacred space more formally and giving it

a grander appearance, particularly when viewed from the outside.603 Very large quantities

of female statuettes, loomweights, and lamps going back to the second quarter of the

sixth century BCE were recovered from all over the sanctuary.604

Religious developments between 480/70 BCE and the end of the fifth century

At Himera, the monumentalization of religious areas was never on the same scale

as what happened at Selinus and Akragas, but the flurry of building activity that began c.

550 BCE and the continuous sequence inside religious areas shows that the city segued

into a 50-year period of relative calm after 550 BCE. At the start of the fifth century,

however, Himera became embroiled in political turmoil, ultimately culminating in the

Battle of Himera in 480 BCE and then subsequent problems that stemmed from an out-

of-favor tyrant, civil strife, political backstabbing, and direct interventions into the city by

Akragas. The disruptions that the city experienced had an immediate impact on the

240

600 De Miro and Fiorentini 1976-77: 425.601 See De Miro 2000: 45-46 for this argument.602 De Miro 2000: 45.603 De Miro 1983; 1985: 96-98.604 For the materials found near the Olympeion/Archaic shrine, see Gabrici 1925: 437-44; for the sanctuary near Gate V, see De Miro 1985: 94-96; Ibid. 2000: parts I and II ; Veronese et al. 2006: 461-62.

religious character of the city during the first half of the fifth century. Part of this impact

was seen in the earmarking of war spoils for the architectural embellishment of Temple

B, the new Temple C on the acropolis, and a new Doric temple, the so-called “Temple of

Victory,” in the space of the older Archaic “valley tempietto.”605 The Temple of Victory

was a peripteral, hexastyle tripartite building structure with fourteen columns on the long

sides and two interior staircases in the pronaos. Numerous architectural decorations were

found in the vicinity of the temple, including pieces of stone-carved pedimental sculpture

and lion’s head water spouts.606

Religious behavior at Himera also seems to have changed somewhat, mainly

through a growing specialization of sacred areas and a spike in the evidence for domestic

cult. Both “urban sanctuaries” were reworked around 500 BCE, contemporary with the

installation of Himera’s second urban plan. The “northern quarter” was expanded,

enclosed within the urban block, and assumed the characteristics of a “neighborhood”

cult area.607 A cistern and its surroundings located to the west of the old Archaic oikos-

building were integrated into the sanctuary, and a number of loomweights and stone

“oscilla” (i.e. figurines or masks that are meant to be hung) were found in the area. After

450 BCE, the sanctuary lost a lot of its significance although cult materials such as a

louterion, temple-model, bronze appliqué, and wine vessels found in the cistern fill show

that it continued to be visited up until the city’s destruction in 408 BCE.608

Changes contemporary with the new urban plan also occurred in the eastern

quarter sanctuary. Peripheral walls, an entry vestibule, and a portico were added to the

sanctuary, where attention continued to center on the eschara in Room 39. Around 430

241

605 Diodorus (xi.25.1) says that after the battle of Himera, Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, ordered the war spoils to be used to decorate the temples to Athena at Syracuse and Himera. Although the temple is colloquially called the Victory temple, it was probably an Athenaion.606 Marconi 1931a; Bonacasa 1980.607 Belvedere and Epifanio 1976: 271. Bonacasa and other scholars desribe the northern quarter sanctuary as a “un vero e proprio santuario urbano,” destined primarily for use by residents living in that particular block or the greater domestic quarter (Bonacasa 1980: 261).608 Three jugs and an askos found at the bottom of the cistern dated the fill to 450-400 BCE. The ritual implications of cisterns are still not very well-understood, particularly when it is difficult to ascertain how and when they went from being used for the collection and/or distribution of water to the deposition, ritual or otherwise, of objects; see, for example, Cadogan 2007 on ritual uses of cisterns at Late Minoan Pyrgos (Crete).

BCE, however, Room 39 was covered with a fill and activity shifted to a new, more

monumental structure consisting of three interconnecting rooms, all of which were

attached to a large courtyard surrounded by annexes.609 In one of the rooms, excavators

found an enormous amount of material under the collapse layer, to the extent that the

excavator described the floor’s appearance as “literally covered by a myriad of objects,

among which the terracotta figurines were most numerous.”610 Oscilla, loomweights, and

many vessels were prominent among the materials as well (see Figure 5-6).611 Part of

the sanctuary (Room 12) seems to have been more functionally specific, as it contained

not only four arulae but also a set of cult vessels (a krater, large lamp, plate, and small

skyphos) each of which are thought to have originally stood on wooden pedestals.612

Other features of the new sanctuary included a well and cistern, a rectangular basin used

for libation pouring, and several louteria. Figurines representing “Athena Ergane,” as

well as a “grotesque” kourotrophos statuette and a large statue of a female figure seated

on a throne and holding a dove at her chest have led some scholars to attribute the

sanctuary to Athena Ergane, with a secondary cult to Demeter and Persephone.613

242

609 Allegro 1976: 490-92.610 Ibid.: 478.611 Ibid.612 Ibid.: 480.613 Other materials were common as well, as were certain rather odd or otherwise specialized objects. “Normal” pottery (skyphoi, cups, ollette or jars, and lamps) was not quantified, making it impossible to determine the overall relationship between categories of material. The more specialized objects included several incense-burners and lekythoi, but also a number of terracotta arulae, numerous clay rings (of uncertain function), a stamp used to decorate pottery, and a series of bronze objects. 33 loomweights were also found within the deposit, all of which dated to the 5th c.

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Distribution of finds from eastern quarter sanctuary, Himera (650-400 BCE)

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Figure 5-6. Distribution of finds from eastern quarter sanctuary, Himera, according to

find-type and date, 650-400 BCE.

At Selinus and Akragas, religious developments continued the monumentalizing

trends in religious architecture of the sixth century. On the Selinuntine acropolis, a pair of

temples (Temples A and O) with nearly identical plans and dimensions (c. 40 x 16.5 m.)

and their own enclosure walls began to be built to the south of the acropolis peribolos

wall in the early fifth century.614 Another sanctuary may have been developed to the north

of the acropolis near the agora, based on Herodotus’ reference to a monumental altar to

Zeus. On the Marinella hill, additions to the still-under-construction Temple G (made in

the 470s and 460s) seem to have aimed towards Classicizing trends.615 Temple E was also

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614 Some attention has been drawn to potential parallels between the inner staircase of Temple A and sacred buildings in the Near East, but inner staircases that led up to the roof were somewhat common features of Greek, and particularly Sicilian Greek, temple architecture (Miles 1998).615 See Marconi 2007: 186.

given a significant facelift as a formally Classical hexastyle temple (75 x 30 m.) with 15

monolithic columns on the long sides and an internal division into pronaos,

opisthodomos, naos, and adyton. This latest version of Temple E featured a rich

decorative ensemble, consisting of sculpted metopes depicting mythological scenes, five

of which have been found, an interior naos divided by a double row of columns, roof

palmettes, polychrome clay antefixes, and leonine gutters.616 A new monumental altar

also dates to this period, as do renovations made to the temple’s temenos wall. A Roman

inscription mentioning Hera and the location of the sanctuary near the port area may

indicate that the temple was dedicated to the goddess.617

! At the Malophoros sanctuary, a cultic complex dedicated to Hekate was built in

front of the Archaic temple probably around 450 BCE.618 The complex consisted of a

temenos with a small, elevated shrine in its southwest corner and a rectangular altar (4.35

x 2 m.) to the southeast of the shrine. Most of the finds from the area conformed to the

fifth-century pattern observed throughout the Malophoros precinct, as shown in Figure

5-7: lamps and statuary dominated the assemblage, with a secondary emphasis on

tablewares and weights. The attribution of the overall precinct to “Demeter Malophoros”

stems from an inscribed base found in this smaller enclosure as well. In the later fifth

century, a monumental propylaeum (8.84 x 8.86 m.) was set between the north and west

walls of the Hekate temenos. A large staircase led up to the propylaeum and onto a paved,

covered court area; from there one would pass through two columns and finally back

down two steps where the inner façade of the Malophoros temple would then be visible.

The addition of the propylaeum thus not only monumentalized the outward appearance of

the sanctuary, but also significantly altered its approach and the experience of the

worshipper.

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616 The metopes depict Herakles and the Amazons, the marriage of Zeus and Hera, Artemis and Aktaion, Athena and the giant Enkeladus, and Apollo and Daphne.617 IG XIV, 271. Aphrodite has also been suggested.618 The attribution to Hekate comes from a late fifth-century inscription found inside the Propylaeum (Gabrici 1927: 375).

Figure 5-7. Finds from the Hekate complex in the sanctuary to Demeter Malophoros,

Selinus. Fifth-century BCE.*Non-tablewares include: 3 lekythoi/alabastra, a cover, a large container, and 3 generic ‘vessels’**Symbolic objects include: 3 phialai, 1 Medusa relief-plaque, 1 animal figurine***Metals include: 7 coins, and at least 2 fragments****Other includes: 7 fragments of marble (probably statuary, but not specified)

The other major development of the Malophoros precinct pertains more to votive

practices in the Meilichios sanctuary than to issues of structural monumentality. The

appearance of lead and terracotta tablets inscribed with curses and prayers in the fifth

century make the sanctuary completely unique in Sicily, not only because of the material

objects, but also for what they say about contemporary social attitudes.619 Most of the

tablets do not specify the deity they are addressing, but several reference “the holy

goddess” or Zeus Meilichios. The defixiones or curse tablets mainly use a formulaic

address similar to (non-cursing) prayers to invoke binding spells, in which the

practitioner seeks to “bind” or incapacitate an enemy.620 Content-wise, the curses seem

0

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Distribution of finds from the Hekate complex, according to find-type (5th c. BCE)

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619 Jeffery (1955) dates the tablets to the fifth century BCE, and of “curse tablets” known from the Greek world, the ones from Selinus are some of the earliest overall.620 I.e. In which the god is reminded of a service done to them in the past and then entreated to help in the current situation; cf. Graf 1991: 189-190.

largely concerned with judicial affairs. A double-sided tablet, for example, tentatively

dated to 470 BCE, curses at least two individual men, one named woman, and “foreign

witnesses.”621 The desire to influence the outcome of a jury trial via curses, often by

appealing to a deity for assistance, should perhaps also be seen in connection with the

great amount of sheep astragals--from 1310 individual animals-- also found in the

Meilichios precinct. Astragals were commonly used for making prophecies, and the

density of them in the Meilichios area may indicate that in addition to trying to disable

enemies, a Selinuntine might also seek divine guidance for how they ought to proceed.622

The evidence presented so far makes it clear that the fifth century was a period of

significant growth at Himera and Selinus. But, fifth-century religious developments are

nowhere better attested than at Akragas. Outlining the appearance of each new sanctuary

or additions to the older ones would be tedious for the reader, but more importantly,

superfluous to the broader argument. By 450 BCE, Akragas had invested in building nine

more temples (bringing the total to 27 at the site), and when Carthage took the city in 406

BCE, there were 29 temples across 19 different sanctuaries. Within the city, eight new

large peripteral temples were put up one after another: the temple to Athena on the

acropolis, the Temple to Olympian Zeus, the two peripteral temples inside the sanctuary

of chthonic gods (the so-called “Temple to the Dioscuri” and Temple L), Temple

D/“Temple of Hera”, Temple G/“Temple of Hephaestus,” the “Temple of Concord,” and

Temple H/“Temple of Asclepius.” It is sufficient to say that in comparison to most of the

earlier Archaic temples, these structures were imposing at the least—their average

dimensions hover around 38.5 by 16.5 meters, with the Temple to Zeus reaching 112.6 by

56.3 meters and including giant (7.61 m.) telamon statues. Almost all of the temples were

also sumptuously decorated with bronze and marble sculpture, marble roofs, and massive

altars.

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621 Side A: “I inscribe (engraphô) Selinontios and the tongue of Selinontios, twisted to the point of uselessness for them. And I inscribe, twisted to the point of uselessness, the tongues of the foreign witnesses (sundikôn xenon).” Side B: “I inscribe Timasoi and the tongue of Timasoi, twisted to the point of uselessness. I inscribe Turanna and the tongue of Turrana, twisted to the point of uselessness for all of them.” See also Gager (1992: 138) for interpretation.622 Gabrici (1927: 163) described the astragals as being used “per conoscere il futuro nel santuario di divinità sotterranee, e a tal fine erano portati cola dai fedeli insieme con gli oggetti del culto, indipendentemente dai sacrifizi di animali ovini.”

In addition to this explosion of new temples, older religious structures at Akragas

also were renovated, being given monumental entrances, secondary shrines, or additional

buildings used as depositories, priestly housing, or dining rooms. The sanctuary at Gate

V, for example, was given a giant propylon whose walls were lined with bases used to

support either pilasters or statues, as well as four small naiskoi in the more urban area

next to the temenos; the lesche was renovated as well.623 Instead of changing the

structural elements, some sanctuaries added more cult features or added to the visibility

of the sanctuary through the use of statuary or other elements. A number of votive

cisterns, trenches, and smaller wells were dug near the temple of Herakles and literary

descriptions imply that by the end of the fifth century the road that ran beside it was also

lined with statues (kouroi, primarily). Extraurban sanctuaries became much grander, some

being integrated into much more extensive sacred areas. The Archaic “santuario

rupestre’” was given a courtyard or open plaza area and was integrated into a larger

sacred complex (the “San Biagio sanctuary”) that included a brand-new sanctuary to

Demeter with a bipartite temple (30.2 x 13.3 m.), two round altars, and a peribolos wall

cut into the rock of the ridge. Sculptures in terracotta and marble were found in a cistern

directly next to the temple. Another new “santuario rupestre” also developed around an

eastern gate of the city (Gate II). Considering that what we know of these sacred spaces

is, in all likelihood, a fragmented image of what existed in antiquity, the picture we have

of Akragas and its religious spaces during the fifth century is one that easily surpassed

extravagance and headed towards the unbelievable.

Discussion

As this descriptive catalogue shows, the evidence for religious activity at Himera,

Selinus, and Akragas is overwhelming. Diachronically framing the evidence in terms of

how it corresponds to a set of religious material correlates adds some much needed

structure. In addition, it allows for more systematic comparisons of the material from

Greek and indigenous settlements.

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623 De Miro 1985: 97; Ibid. 2000: 46-47.

Early developmentsThe earliest Greek colonial religious activity mostly consisted of open-air rituals

carried out in non-built settings, usually separated from regular habitation areas by large

open spaces. Sacrificial and dedicatory practices were most frequent, based on the

quantities and context of the finds. A few sites featured attention-focusing devices,

usually in the form of small stone structural elements.624 Ritual activity concentrated

around these stone features-- altars and the limestone block at Himera--, as indicated by

the presence of ash, burnt and unburnt animal bones, and large amounts of drinking

wares. “Daedalic”-style statuettes and ornamental objects were also present, but were less

frequent. By c. 600 BCE, Himera and Selinus had designated their acropoleis as places

for religious activity, putting up permanent religious buildings surrounded with enclosure

walls there; in the case of Selinus, this also occurred along the city’s eastern boundary.

We know that at least in Himera’s case, the construction of early Archaic shrines was

accompanied by the dedication of wealthy offerings and it’s likely that this was also the

case at Selinus where years of reuse have long since removed any evidence for votive

practice. The earliest Archaic shrines were generally modest, with longitudinal

dimensions coming in under 16 meters, but it’s almost certain that at least two of the

Archaic predecessors of the later Selinuntine temples were larger. Thus, by the end of the

seventh century, only fifty years after Greek colonies in western Sicily had been

established, the monumentalization of religious space had taken hold.

Indigenous Sicilian sacred areas show some of the same physical qualities

observed in the Greek colonies during this early period, but also some important

differences. Between 650 and 600 BCE, for example, 10 indigenous sites designated

parts of their land to ritual-like activity exclusively. Like at the Greek settlements, these

areas often began as open-air cult sites that were fitted with structures shortly thereafter.

As I showed in Chapter 3, these structures could be notably different than what existed in

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624 Significantly, this only happens at a single sanctuary at each site--the acropolis sanctuary at Himera, the Malophoros sanctuary at Selinus, and the sanctuary of chthonic gods at Akragas--, all of which also appear to be the most frequently and intensely used religious areas throughout the sites’ occupations.

the Greek colonies: the curvilinear hut-shrines have no parallels in the Greek colonies

and probably have more in common with Bronze Age Sicilian domestic architecture than

contemporary Greek buildings. Two indigenous sites did rectangular buildings, however,

and these, based on their division into two internal rooms and their dimensions, appear

very similar in style to what was being built at Himera and Selinus (and at Gela, the

Greek colony to the east of the case study area, founded before any of the western

colonies). Other cities built both round and rectangular structures or integrated the two

forms in unique combinations. No matter the form of the sanctuary, however, a shift

towards built spaces set apart for ritual activity is unquestionable for indigenous Sicilian

communities.

The only Greek sanctuary assemblage that can be measured quantitatively and

that dates to this earlier phase comes from the Malophoros sanctuary, a fact that

obviously limits the strength of the sample. Even so, the percentages of vessel categories

can still be roughly compared to the overall impression that we have of the material from

indigenous sites. At Selinus, tablewares, which included jugs, plates and bowls, table

amphorae, and “countless” cups, constituted close to 50% of the early Archaic ceramic

assemblage, followed by the 24.5% of miniature kotylai (see again Appendix 1).

Seventh-century assemblages from indigenous sites are mostly described in generic terms

of “pottery,” but in the cases where forms are specified, “Early Corinthian” and cup

forms are recurrent, as is the case at the Malophoros sanctuary and the Himera acropolis.

By the sixth century BCE, the parallels in religious material culture between Greek and

indigenous Sicilian sites are even greater, and at some indigenous sites, the percentage of

table- and winewares far exceeds what existed contemporaneously at the Greek

sanctuaries. I have already emphasized the role of wine consumption in the indigenous

sanctuaries, a practice that seems to have extended up through at least 500 BCE. Wine

drinking seems to have also been an important feature of some Greek sanctuaries, as

underlined by the find-spots of drinking vessels, such as the large krater fragment on top

of the Malophoros “autel primitif.” At both Greek and indigenous sanctuaries, the close

association of these ceramic finds with ash and meat bones and their concentration

249

around specific sacrificial locations recalls sacrifices followed by feasting and drinking

activities.

The other major ritual activity at Greek sites during this period involved

dedications, notably of oil or perfume vessels, pyxides, and small terracotta statuettes of

(mostly) female figures. Metal offerings and fragments (probably the remains of offerings

now since lost) were noted for all of the Gaggera sanctuaries at Selinus, but they were

generally small ornaments or utensils. At Himera, in contrast, the early votives associated

with the late seventh-century Temple A were luxurious and seem related to the foundation

of the temple. Votives from indigenous Sicilian sites vary, but the two most significant

find-types were female statuettes similar to those found in the Greek sanctuaries and, at

four sites, metals, some of which were significantly more detailed and ornamental than

the Greek offerings, making use of a distinct iconography that hearkens back to styles

seen in Iron Age tombs.

Levels of investment among Greek colonial sanctuaries As the sixth century unfolded, there was a steady rise in the number of

sanctuaries present within each of the Greek colonies and the level of economic

investment in religion. The buildings indicate a growing standardization in religious

architecture as well: by 580/70 BCE, elongated, rectangular shrines divided into two or

three rooms and often decorated with columns in antis and terracotta sculpture were the

customary form for new religious constructions. Permanent temenos walls that clearly

delineated the sanctuary from its surroundings and stone altars became a requisite formal

part of the sanctuary. Within less than 20 years, hekatompeda or 100-footer temples and

Doric peripteral architecture both started to appear. Large sanctuary complexes also

began to develop, sometimes unifying multiple pre-existing sacred areas, which in

addition to having at least one large temple as its focal point, also incorporated treasuries,

smaller cult buildings, and housing for religious personnel within their confines. Once

initiated, then, monumentality rapidly intensified, with each of the cities (that could

afford it) striving to outdo the structures prior, sometimes no more than a generation later.

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Figure 5-8 charts the appearance of individual temple buildings up through 406

BCE among the Greek settlements and at Motya, demonstrating in particular the spike in

the construction of religious buildings at Akragas in the fifth century.

Figure 5-8. Appearance of built sacred structures within the Greek and Phoenician

colonies in central-western Sicily.

In Megara Hyblaea and Selinous, De Angelis makes a strong case for how quantifying

the economics of temple-building can contribute towards a deeper understanding of

Greek colonial society and politics.625 De Angelis draws heavily on the work of J.J.

Coulton, who argued that the total cost involved in the construction of temples A, C-G,

and O--all temples built between 550 and 460 BCE-- ranged from 1500 to 2000 talents.626

By calculating the volume of stone involved in each of these monuments, and then

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Built sacred structures in colonial central-western Sicily

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Himera Selinus Akragas Motya

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625 De Angelis 2003b: 163-67. See these pages for fuller explanation of his method as well. 626 Coulton 1988: 20-21. It should be noted that De Angelis’ method estimated costs involving only the stone, which he valued at 1200-1600 for the tempes that Coulton included.

dividing that volume by the total volume of stone overall, De Angelis arrives at a

proportionate estimate of the cost for each of these seven Selinuntine temples and argues

that, based on their costs and dates of construction, Selinus was involved in a constant

building programme between 550 and 460 BCE.627

The approach taken by De Angelis and others has been a welcome addition to the

oeuvre on Greek colonial temples, but it still needs some adjusting, particularly since it

accounts for less than half of the religious structures at Selinus, none of the buildings

prior to 550 BCE, excludes other religious “features” in the calculation, and does not

include estimates for either the marble imports (most of which came from the east Greek

islands) or decorative production. However, it does offer a baseline from which we can

build a comparison of religious investments between the Greek colonies themselves and

across Greek, Phoenician, and indigenous communities as well, particularly as the

sanctuaries developed over time. For Selinus, we know that all the temples built prior to

550 BCE (i.e. the ones that De Angelis and Coulton do not include in their estimates)

measured less than the smallest of the monumental temples (i.e. Temple A, which

measured 40.3 x 16.3 m., or 656.89 sq. meters), save perhaps those that were “early

versions” of the later temples; these would include the late seventh-century versions of

Temples C and E and perhaps Temple Y/”temple of the small metopes,” which was

described as “smaller than the version of Temple C built slightly later.”628

De Angelis guesses that Temple A cost 51-68 talents. Since most of the earlier

temples were not only smaller in square area than Temple A, but also lacked a peristasis,

we can assume that they were generally proportionately lower in costs as well, making an

exception, of course, for the “early versions” of the larger temples for which we can only

hazard guesses. If the cost of columns used in Temple A is removed, and the cost for just

the main body of the building calculated according to De Angelis’ method, the cost would

range between 42.6-56.8 talents for a building of 656.89 cubic meters. The cost of each

cubic meter of stone can then be approximated at costing between .057 and .086 of a

talent; similar estimates of cubic meter worth can be produced by following a similar

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627 De Angelis 2003b: 165, 168.628 Ibid.: 135; thus, less than 71.07 x 26.62 m. at the krepidoma.

procedure with the other monumental temples, producing an average of roughly .065 of a

talent per square meter.

Much of the other information (height, decoration, etc.) that is needed to establish

a minimum in production costs is absent for Archaic sanctuaries at Selinus, so any

application of the estimate is going to be imperfect since we cannot calculate the exact

volume of material used. Even so, however, by applying the value of the cubic meter to

the square areas of the buildings, we can come up with at least a minimum of costs for

the early Archaic temples in the Greek colonies (detailed in Appendix 3). Using this

method, a minimum measurement of the economic investment in religious architecture

can be reached.

Religious buildings built at Selinus between 650 and 450 BCE cost, in sum, at

least between 1452.57-1885.42 talents, or 7.26-9.43 per year.629 How do the

developments at Himera and Akragas compare? At Himera, the earliest built construction

used non-worked river stones from the Himera Grande river and mud-brick walls. In size,

Temple A is comparable to the “second megaron” in the Malophoros sanctuary, but the

choice of building materials would have made it considerably less expensive to build than

what the Selinuntines did, perhaps more along the lines of the first megaron in costs (i.e.

a minimum of 3-4 talents). When Temple B was built c. 550 BCE, quarried and polished

stones were used to build an all-stone construction of 30.7 x 10.6 meters (height

unknown). If the same average cost per square meter of construction is applied, the stone

production for the acropolis sanctuary during the mid-sixth century (including, thus,

Temple B, Temple D, and the altar) would have cost a minimum of 30.85 talents. The

sanctuary also incorporated a great quantity of terracotta architectural decorations-- both

for structural and purely aesthetic purposes-- so perhaps the estimate might be raised to

31-31.5 talents. The Tamburino sanctuary, also built around 550 BCE and probably a

hekatompedon comparable in size to Temple B, would have thus cost around 21 talents,

while a minimum of 3 to 4 talents would have been required by the small shrine in the

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629 Since the dimensions of both early versions of temples C and E and Temple Y have been imagined as being “close to” the measurements of the later structures, I simply use the estimates for Temple A (minus the costs for peristases when relevant).

north residential quarter. The dimensions of the small “tempietto in antis” that pre-dated

the erection of the Victory shrine are unknown, but given the date of the structure to the

late sixth century and the qualification of it as both small and in antis, it was likely

comparable to the tempietto in antis at Akragas near Gate V, which measured 15.7 by 6

meters; if so, a reasonable guess for the cost of the Himeran tempietto might be hazarded

at 6-7 talents. The largest investment in religious architecture would have occurred in the

fifth century BCE when the acropolis sanctuary was renovated with the addition of

“Temple C” and the monumental Victory temple was built on the lower slopes. Together,

the fifth-century construction costs would have easily exceeded 200 talents, assuming the

same average of each cubic meter of stone costing 0.065 of a talent.630 Overall, however,

Himera’s investment in religious architecture was lower than that of Selinus, and it was

only until after the Battle of Himera that extraordinary sums of money were put towards

religious elaboration. Even so, the funding required for the smaller sanctuaries still

exceeds most of the investment incurred at indigenous and Phoenician settlements.

In comparison to Himera, Akragas stands at the opposite end of the spectrum of

Greek colonial building. The 29 different temple buildings that arose between 580 and

the end of the fifth century earned the city its reputation of being philaglae, kallista

broteân poliôn-- “splendor-loving, the most beautiful city of men”-- and the Emmenids,

the family of the tyrant Theron, their reputation for living under an aieváou ploútou

néphos-- “cloud of everflowing wealth”.631 The expense of Akragantine temples has most

often been inferred from the “200 talents” that was supposedly used for building the

temple to Zeus Atyrbios at Akragas in the time of Phalaris (c. 560 BCE), as recorded by

Polyaenus. I would suggest however that using this reference for interpreting the costs of

all of the Akragantine temples raises some real problems. Besides the fact that it is quite

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630 Marconi (1931a: 38-82) provides all available measurements for the different architectural elements for the Temple of Victory. I estimate a minimal cost of 188.39 talents for the structure, calculated according to De Angelis’ method of measuring the cubic volume of stone involved in each of the architectural features (krepidoma + stylobate + column drums + capitals + architrave). The main variable that is missing is the height of the columns; for this, I chose a low measurement of 7 meters, based on the average height of columns used in the temples at Akragas and Syracuse that were part of this same building programme following the Battle of Himera. The cost of “Temple C” is achieved via the same method used for other temples where only the square area is known, bringing it to a minimum of 7 talents + the cost of the extensive architectural decorations. 631 Pindar, Pyth. 12.4 and fr. Enc. 119 (ed. Race 1997: 347).

late in the literary record--Polyaenus’s dates fall in the second century CE-- this passage

implies that the Temple of Zeus Atyrbios cost roughly the same as what De Angelis has

estimated for Temple E at Selinus (i.e. 184.8-246.4 talents), spent around the mid-fifth

century BCE. Temple E measured 75 by 30 meters, and was a monumental, all-stone,

peripteral temple. The implication is thus that the temple of Zeus Atyrbios had to have

been somewhat analogous to the Selinuntine structure, but if this is the case, then it

would need to be larger than any of the other temples at Akragas, except for the

Olympeion. All of this seems highly unlikely, particularly given the facts that the

structure belongs in the first or second generation of occupation at Akragas and that it left

no traces in the archaeological record.

Akragantine temples, save the unfinished Olympeion and potentially the

hypothetical Temple to Zeus Atyrbios, were significantly smaller than the temples at

Selinus, meaning that while there were more of them, perhaps the same amount of wealth

was involved. Diodorus remarks on the costs of fifth-century public building projects at

Akragas as well, saying that after the Battle of Himera, a large number of Carthaginian

captives were taken to Akragas and put to work on building projects. Diodorus tells us

that most of the prisoners “were handed over to the state, and it was these men who

quarried the stones of which not only the largest temples of the gods were constructed but

also the underground conduits were built to lead off the waters from the city; these are so

large that their construction is well worth seeing, although it is little thought of since they

were built at slight expense” (!"#$%&'($) *+)'# (, -'('.-*/'.0', -'12*3 4#5 (6)

*7(&8*#') -'('93$)$/0*)$)).632 The Greek is unclear as to whether Diodorus is

talking about both the temples and the conduits or just the conduits, but his consideration

of at least some major building projects after the Battle of Himera as inexpensive (even if

it would not have appeared so to outsiders) is still intriguing.

All of this brings us to the fact that Akragantine “wealth” was dispersed across

many generally modest temple buildings and sanctuaries, at least up until 450 BCE. After

450, temples involving more labor and bigger-ticket building materials-- both the temples

255

632 Diod. Sic. Lib. XI.25.3

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=katafronou%2Fmenon&la=greek&prior=eu)te/leian

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=a%29cioqe%2Faton&la=greek&prior=w(/ste

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=a%29cioqe%2Faton&la=greek&prior=w(/ste

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ei%29%3Dnai&la=greek&prior=a)cioqe/aton

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ei%29%3Dnai&la=greek&prior=a)cioqe/aton

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=to%5C&la=greek&prior=ei)=nai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=to%5C&la=greek&prior=ei)=nai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kataskeu%2Fasma&la=greek&prior=to%5C

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kataskeu%2Fasma&la=greek&prior=to%5C

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kai%2Fper&la=greek&prior=kataskeu/asma

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kai%2Fper&la=greek&prior=kataskeu/asma

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=dia%5C&la=greek&prior=kai/per

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=dia%5C&la=greek&prior=kai/per

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=th%5Cn&la=greek&prior=dia%5C

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=th%5Cn&la=greek&prior=dia%5C

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=eu%29te%2Fleian&la=greek&prior=th%5Cn

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=eu%29te%2Fleian&la=greek&prior=th%5Cn

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=katafronou%2Fmenon&la=greek&prior=eu)te/leian

of Hera and Concord used imported marble in addition to local stone-- multiplied and the

degree of investment in decoration, particularly in stone statuary, increased significantly.

My calculations for Akragantine building are lower than what was estimated for Selinus,

mostly because I use minimum measurements and do not have all of the information for

various building components, but it should be kept in mind that Akragas would have

invested within a rather shorter time frame than Selinus. I think it would be safe to

assume that at least for the building stone involved, the aggregate costs of religious

construction at Akragas and Selinus were probably roughly equivalent.

I highlight the investments made into these sanctuaries in order to make three

points. The first has been widely acknowledged in the scholarship: Greek colonies

engaged in a wide process of religious monumentalization during the sixth century BCE.

Patterns of monumentality can also be observed among east Greek city-states as they

used temple building as a “medium of rivalry between peer polities.”633 In the Aegean,

the elaboration of Archaic non-urban sanctuaries (those more than 5-6 km away from the

civic center) has been seen as the one of the most visible expressions of such a rivalry.

Moreover, the rivalry is largely seen as one of competition between regional elites, which

was then co-opted to reflect the claims of their respective poleis to territorial authority.634

The Archaic temple of Hera near Argos, for example, has been construed as a place of

“ritualized competition” between local elites and thus as “...the locus for the symbolic

expression of the regional supremacy of Argos.”635 In contrast, the evidence for large,

non-urban Greek sanctuaries in central-western Sicily is very poor. “Rivalry” between

peer polities was densely concentrated into monumental urban temples and sanctuaries on

the settlement margins (i.e. less than 2 km away from the center) that seem to have more

to do with the expression of civic wealth than the competitive discourse between regional

elites. Moreover, the rivalry between the colonial Greek poleis seems much more

targeted. Not only do the giant Doric temples at Selinus and Akragas have nearly exactly

the same length and only marginally different widths (the Temple to Olympian Zeus at

256

633 Snodgrass 2006/1986: 251; see also Carter 1990: 409-10; 1994: 171-74; De Polignac 1995: 41-80; Osborne 1996: 262-66; Whitley 2001: 194, 228-31.634 De Polignac 1995: 31-33; Morgan 1990: 5-7. 635 De Polignac 1995: 37.

Akragas, built later than the temple at Selinus, has--predictably-- the slightly greater

width); there is also a historical record of protracted political hostility between the

cities.636 Snodgrass argues that this direct competition was a very conscious process:

“The people responsible for the foundation of the western colonies, for the formation of

the hoplite armies, for the marginal surpassing of the measurements of their rivals’

temples...must have been aware not only of the structure within which they were

operating, but of the scope which it gave for internal comparisons.”637 The investment of

resources in religious monumentalization does not, for Greek Sicilians, seem to be about

expressing competition with elites from other poleis. Rather, it seems to provide a direct

commentary on the economic fortitude and collective power of the community, even if

the resources themselves were provided by aristocratic individuals. De Polignac’s more

general appraisal of Greek temples as “objects of a process of appropriation crowned by

the building of a sanctuary that designated the frontier the group claimed for its territory

in the face of its neighbor-adversaries. The religious site was an agalma, a sacred emblem

of the extension of one people’s power, and when two peoples fought over it, it resembled

the tripod to which both Apollo and Herakles laid claim.”638

Social attitudes of collectivity and communality in Greek colonial religious practice: sacrifice, feasting, and votive dedications

Monumentalization and the heavy investment in religious building was one way

of emblemizing the polis collective and civic access to economic resources, but not

everything was about the expression of these qualities. Other aspects of religious culture

from the Greek colonies, I would argue, show that the mentality of collectivity and

communality extended into the realm of religious practice, through rituals that demanded

group participation and encouraged the participation of all social categories. Thus, my

second point in discussing Greek colonial religious material is to contrast the level of

investment in religious architecture with the material record for religious ritual. As

257

636 De Miro 1992; Anello 1997: 48-51; De Angelis 2003b: 157-62; Snodgrass 2006/1986: 252-53; Marconi 2007: 55-60.637 Snodgrass 2006/1986: 256.638 De Polignac 1995: 60.

mentioned earlier, early cult activity in the Greek colonies primarily involved sacrifices

and votive dedications. As Robin Hägg notes, the “crucial and most difficult part” of

studying ancient sacrifice is determining the types of animals involved, the distribution of

portions for gods and men, and how the meals following the sacrifices were prepared.639

Faunal remains are still greatly understudied in Sicily and quantitative analyses are

mostly non-existent for Greek Sicilian sanctuaries. In fact, the only study to give a

detailed faunal analysis is, surprisingly, Gabrici’s 1927 study of the Zeus Meilichios

sanctuary at Selinus, which looked at over 2800 bone pieces, of which 212 were skeletal

fragments and 2620 were sheep astragals. Ovicaprids were the dominant animal

represented overall, although six other animals--the ox, pig, domestic dog, chicken, the

horse, and deer-- were also present in very minor percentages.640 Gabrici estimated that

1310 individual sheep were represented by the astragals and suggested that the

disproportionate number was due to the use of astragals “for predicting the future in the

sanctuary of chthonic divinities and, to this end, they were brought there by the faithful,

along with [other] cult objects, independently of the sacrifices that were made of ovine

animals.”641

Gabrici’s analysis is exceptional in more ways than one, not the least being that

someone of his era made the effort to record animal bones. For most of the other

sanctuaries, however, what we can say about the use of animals in sacrificial rituals is

largely impressionistic. Appendix 4 lists the known descriptions of faunal remains from

the sanctuaries at Himera, Selinus and Akragas; from the summary, it is clear that we are

still somewhat far away from being able to establish minimum numbers of animal

victims.642 It has been argued that for Greek cities, meat came to private households

258

639 Hägg 1998b: 55.640 Gabrici 1927: 160-62. The domestic ox is represented by fragments of the head, limbs, and pelvis. Deer are more scarse, mostly represented by parts of the head (the antler) and limbs. Horse fragments include two teeth and a limb bone while pig bones included fragments of jaws, teeth, and one shoulder-blade bone. Domestic dog represented by a few fragments of limbs and a single tooth. Faunal remains of birds (chicken) are very few.641 Ibid.: 161.642 Himera: Acropolis sanctuary (Bonacasa 1970: 74-76); N. Quarter sanctuary (Bonacasa Carra and Joly 1976: 123-25); E. Quarter sanctuary (Allegro 1976: 476-81). Selinus: Malophoros sanctuary (Dewailly 1992; S. Tusa et al. 1984); Heraion (S. Tusa et al. 1986: 42). Akragas: San Nicola sanctuary (Marconi 1926: 96); Sanctuary of chthonic gods (Veronese et al. 2006: 463-65).

almost exclusively via sacrifices, mostly of sheep and goats, and occasionally of cattle

killed in the grander state sacrifices.643 In the early Iron Age, cattle were the most

common animals used for sacrifice, but as population grew and agricultural pressures

increased, the need for fieldwork and haulage meant that less cattle were given over for

sacrifice. Because of this, cattle were significantly more expensive to sacrifice than other

animal victims and moderately-sized communities could only afford to offer a very few

cattle for sacrifice, if any at all.644 Cattle remained important symbolic statements,

however, particularly in state and larger inter-regional sacrifices and the choice between

them and other animals was, as other scholars have emphasized, essentially a matter of

cost and availability.

Michael Jameson made an important link between the general scale of state

expenditure to its access to herds and the number of public sacrifices the state

participated in, particularly of cattle. He claimed that “where extraordinary amounts of

money were available for ritual and social use, a different [i.e. different than the minimal

pattern seen in more moderately-sized communities] pattern can be seen.”645 Extremely

wealthy states, such as fifth-century Athens, could afford to provide significantly richer

public sacrifices that produced more meat per participating citizen, buying meat from

herds raised in areas largely outside of Attica.646 The scale of expenditure in the Greek

colonies was great, although there is still no systematic comparison of, say, diachronic

levels of state spending at Athens and Selinus or Akragas. By analogy, we might thus

expect the western Greek colonies to have had at least the resources for more public

sacrifices. In addition, unlike Athens, central-western Siceliot colonies do not appear to

have been under the same land constraints that guided animal availability (particularly of

cattle) in the Aegean; they all had fairly large hinterland territories that would have easily

supported pastoralism on top of intensive plant agriculture. De Angelis “conservatively”

estimates that Selinus’ arable territory, for example, could have supported

259

643 Jameson 1988: 87-89; Garnsey 1999: 133-35; Davidson 1997: 15-16.644 Jameson 1988: 94.645 Ibid.: 96.646 Ibid.: 97.

161,000-250,000 people, far more than the actual population of the center (posited as

being 6664-10,000 people). The coast between Cefalù and Termini Imerese and the

mountains imposed natural limits on Himera’s territory, but the river plain and hillsides

would still have assured the colony of the natural resources it needed.647 Again, then, the

framework needed for the regular inclusion of animal-- and large animal at that-- sacrifice

in the religious organization of the colonies seems fairly well-substantiated.

That Greek colonial communities capitalized on the opportunities for greater

intensity in animal sacrifice is best illustrated, however, by both the number and size of

altars that appear from about 600 BCE onwards as well as some references to animal

sacrifice in the literary and epigraphic accounts. Built altars became standard for nearly

every temple and many were monumental; the altar for the acropolis sanctuary at Himera,

for example, took up 77.84 sq. meters while at Selinus, the construction of the

monumental acropolis altar required a large, artificial terrace created by moving 25-30

thousand cubic meters of earth, an act that Østby calls “one of the most impressive

engineering feats in the entire Greek world in this period and a revealing piece of

evidence for the resources and ambitions of the colony.”648 The attention to built altars is

notable at Akragas as well, where, for example, in the sanctuary of chthonic gods there

were at least 10 altars that appear to have been used for varied sacrificial purposes from

the second quarter of the sixth century on. In terms of visibility, altar facilities and the

rituals they hosted were clearly a central religious focus.

Burkert famously made the case for seeing animal sacrifice as an act of communal

bonding par excellence. He wrote,

However difficult it may be for mythological and for conceptual reflection to understand how such a sacrifice affects the god, what it means for men is always quite clear: community, koinonia. Membership of the community is marked by the washing of hands, the encirclement and the communal throwing; an even closer bond is forged through the tasting of the splanchna. From a psychological and ethological point of view, it is the communally enacted aggression and shared guilt which creates solidarity. The circle of the participants has closed itself off from outsiders. The order of life, a social order, is constituted in the sacrifice through irrevocable acts; religion and everyday existence interpenetrate so completely that every community, every order must be founded through a sacrifice.649

260

647 Belvedere 1978.648 Di Vita 1967: 32-34; 1987: 57-60; Østby 1995: 88.649 Burkert 1985: 58-59, 254-60.

Burkert’s strong contention in Greek Religion and in other works that communal bonding

resulted most of all through the sharing of collective guilt incurred through ritualized

killing has been widely critiqued and in reality, there is no real need for proving its

accuracy one way or another. Whatever the “reason” behind the communal bond, it seems

clear that religious sacrifices could fulfill this sort of function. Any opportunity for

communal bonding would have been epitomized by the division and distribution of meat

that followed sacrifices. Opinions vary as to how common it was for worshippers to

consume meat within sanctuary confines after it was sacrificed. Hägg and others say that

it was “normally grilled and [eaten] within the sanctuary,”650 while others argue that the

bidding of some inscriptions to not remove the meat from the sanctuary actually indicates

that the opposite was more customary.651 Dining en masse did occur, as indicated by the

presence of dining hall structures at some sites, and Jameson argued that these types of

feasts probably involved the commensality of particular groups within the community

rather than polis as a whole, using evidence from Crete, Athens and Sparta as support.652

In central-western Sicily, however, there are oblique allusions in both the literary and

iconographic records to civic festivals and sacrificial feasting that may have extended

beyond these more restricted social groups.653

Perhaps it makes the most sense to see sacrifices and the potential they had for

fostering communal bonding in terms of consumption, rather than trying to determine

how to define (limit?) the “group” or specific community involved. Sitta von Reden has

noted that,

Public sacrificial banquets offered a wider group of citizens participation in a culture of consumption otherwise reserved for an exclusive elite. For the duration of the festival, banquets broke down the boundaries between different cultures of consumption defined by differential wealth and differential access to commodities distributed via the market. For the elite, in turn, meat was excluded from competitive consumption.654

261

650 Hägg 1998b: 49.651 E.g. Jameson 1994: 45.652 Ibid.: 45-47.653 Alluded to for Akragas in Pind. Pyth. 12.1-2; Poly. 5.1.1. For the social implications of metopal iconography at Selinus, see Marconi 1997; Ibid. 2007: 187-91.654 Von Reden 2007: 396.

From this point of view, both the more infrequent festival banquets that involved the

entire polis community and smaller but still public sacrifices enabled religious (and civic)

participation in ways that might not otherwise be possible.655

The large numbers of table- and drinking wares found in the Siceliot sanctuaries

might be understood in a similar manner. Their presence intensifies significantly between

650 and 480/70 BCE and then drops off, suggesting that the frequency and perhaps size

of the ceremonies expanded during the Archaic period. Cups of various forms were

overwhelmingly dominant among almost all of the sanctuary assemblages, and were

nearly always found associated with other wine-assemblage vessels. In all of the cities,

the heavy percentage of wine and table wares and the large quantities of burnt and

unburnt bones suggests that ritualized drinking and feasting were regular occasions that

were then expanded for specific festivals involving the entire city’s population.

Votive dedication was the other major ritual practice of the Greek colonial

sanctuaries (at least, in terms of what we are able to identify archaeologically) and here

again, there are signs that participation involved a range of social classes and groups.

Sanctuary assemblages are mind-numbingly monotonous in most cases; across the board,

the most well-documented votive categories were modest forms of small terracotta

statuary and pottery. In addition, some sanctuaries included dense concentrations of

particular types of objects. Sanctuaries like the Malophoros and the Heraion at Selinus,

and the northern and eastern urban sanctuaries at Himera included large numbers of

(loom)weights, a category of material that at other sanctuaries is not present at all.656

Other sanctuaries had significantly higher numbers of lamps than others.

These sixth-century patterns are pronounced when contrasted with the (admittedly

fewer) ritual remains of the late seventh century BCE. In this period, metals were more

prominent in the votive deposits at both Selinus and Himera, as were rather fine examples

of oil- or perfume-holding aryballoi and alabastra. In the Malophoros sanctuary, for

example, the 745 oil vessels dating to between 625 and 590/80 BCE had dropped to 195

262

655 Similar arguments have been put forward by Schmitt-Pantel 1990: 16-18.656 The Akragantine sanctuaries that correspond to this description are many and include: Gate V sanctuary, the sanctuary of chthonic gods, the ‘santuario rupestre,’ the San Biagio temple to Demeter, and the San Nicola sanctuary.

by 570 BCE and the bronze statuettes, votive shields, weaponry, and bucchero alabastra

left as votives at Himera had been replaced with local pots and terracotta figurines. The

metals found in the Selinuntine Heraion were not dated, but stratigraphic descriptions

imply that they also gave way to less intrinsically valuable materials by 570-560 BCE. At

Akragas, the only significant metal deposit was at the Sant’Anna sanctuary where it dates

to the earliest period of site occupation and looks far more like a hoard, possibly made by

indigenous groups, than a votive dedication.

Any super-rich dedications were, of course, plundered in antiquity and rarely

survive through the ages for modern archaeologists to discover. This general problem,

however, does not explain the decline in moderately wealthy dedications that seems to

occur during the sixth century BCE. Snodgrass addressed this issue more generally for

the Archaic period in Greece, arguing that offerings in Greek sanctuaries between 750

and 500 BCE tend to be more frequent but of lower value than offerings of either the

previous or subsequent periods.657 He explained this as a shift in Greek religious attitude,

drawing on Walter Burkert’s distinction between “raw” and “converted” offerings. “Raw”

offerings included weapons, jewelry, shields and other materials for which, as Burkert put

it, “require no more than the simple act of surrender.”658 Snodgrass argued that statues,

statuettes, simulacra, inscribed plaques and other materials were, by contrast, conversions

of part of the dedicant’s wealth, rather than a part of it in its own right, mostly exchanged

for materials produced specifically for the purposes of dedication. In addition, he

suggested that “‘converted’ offerings must inevitably involve a greater economic outlay

than ‘raw’ ones...[because] the dedicant who commisions a specially-produced

dedication, or even buys one ready-made at the sanctuary, must pay for the time and raw

materials of the professional whose services are needed for its production.”659 Snodgrass

concluded that the termination of the older “raw” offerings at the end of the Archaic

263

657 Snodgrass 2006/1989: 260, 263-66.658 Burkert 1987: 45.659 Snodgrass 2006/1989: 265.

period signified a broader dilution of the egalitarian ethos that had defined the early

polis.660

Snodgrass’s insights are excellent, but the situation in the Greek colonial

sanctuaries is somewhat different than contemporary Aegean Greek sanctuaries.

“Converted” offerings are present in the colonial sanctuaries from the outset, particularly

in the form of statuettes. “Raw” offerings in the form of ornaments or other metal items,

were present as well, but were generally rarer. More frequent were “raw” offerings of

everday terracotta materials such as table wares, loomweights, and lamps, that potentially

served both utilitarian and votive purposes. Within these general patterns, however, there

are some breaks in the material record. After 600 BCE, “converted” offerings become

increasingly more standardized. Ivory, faience, and metal representations almost

completely disappear and even fragments of these materials are rare. The “converted”

offerings that proliferate, however, are mass-produced, mould-made terracotta objects

that are, however, symbolically rich. Female “divinity”-types like the kourotrophos, the

peplos-statue, and the “crowned goddess” on a throne are particularly well-represented

and figurines representing an offerent with extended hand, often holding a plate with

food, are popular too. The large quantities of miniaturized drinking wares can also be

considered “converted” offerings, since they seem to have had expressly votive functions.

In this case again, the “converted” offering is highly symbolic, but surely not necessarily

more “valuable” in economic terms. In general, the modesty of the mobile material

record for almost all of the sixth century and early fifth century BCE certainly seems to

stress an “egalitarian” ethos similar to the one to which Snodgrass refers. Finally, it

should also be noted that in many ways the individual offerings of tablewares and

miniature kotylai reference other rituals that would have involved the larger social body--

notably drinking practices and sacrifice.

In the fifth century, trends in votive practice changed once again. Moderately

wealthy metal items became more numerous overall, but tended to be concentrated into

only a few sanctuaries, including the Meilichios sanctuary at Selinus and the Colimbetra

264

660 Ibid.: 266.

sanctuary and Olympeion at Akragas.661 These same sanctuaries were also the few places

where remains of votive stelai have been found while lead and terracotta defixiones were

a singularity of the Meilichios area. Free-standing sculpture also suddenly became a

significant fixture in some Greek sanctuaries, complementing the usage of stone

sculptural elements in temple architecture, like those of the metopes in the Temple of

Victory at Himera, the telamons at Akragas, or the complex narratives depicted in

Selinuntine temple friezes.

Snodgrass made the argument that “evidence of sculpture, in its very nature, tends

to throw its main light on the prosperity of those rich enough to afford monuments.”662 In

Attica, the sudden appearance of marble sculptures, executed for private individuals,

looks more like a reaction to a changed economic and ideological attitudes towards

conspicuous consumption. It is possible that the same thing could be said for certain

aspects of fifth-century Greek colonial votive behavior. Evidence for sculpture at Himera

is mostly limited to some isolated pieces, but statuary at Selinus is evidenced by the

heads of near-life-size female stone statues (dating c. 480-410 BCE) found in Temple E

as well as by the marble fragments of statues and architectural decorations listed in

Gabrici’s catalog of finds from the acropolis excavations of 1920 and 1921.663 More

thorough is the documentation for the use of votive sculpture at Akragas. Diodorus

describes the road past the temple to Herakles as being lined with kouroi, and even the

generally low-profile periurban sanctuaries could have Classicizing marble sculptures,

like the fine “Agrigento youth” statue recovered from a cistern next to the San Biagio

Demeter sanctuary.664 As Margaret Miles points out, across the Greek world dedications

(of statuary, but also more generally) “were made in sanctuaries for a wide variety of

purposes: they could commemorate sudden bursts of prosperity (a large catch of tuna fish

off Corfu, a lucky strike in a gold mine on Siphnos) and equestrian or athletic triumphs

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661 It should be noted that at the metals from the Malophoros sanctuary included atypical agricultural tools, perhaps indicating their use in the Proerosia, the pre-ploughing festival that is mentioned in the sacrificial calendar for Eleusis (IG II-III (2nd ed.) 1363).662 Snodgrass 1980: 146.663 Gabrici 1929: 90-111.664 Rizza and De Miro 1985: 202, 224, fig. 238; see more generally Pugliese Caratelli and Fiorentini (eds) 1992.

by individual in festival games.665 Diodorus informs us that successful Akragantine

citizens had acquired their wealth through the olive oil business, with many merchants

building large houses and setting up rich dedications in the temples and Akragantine

agora. Dedications that were the result of military victories were definitively richer and

more elaborate in nature, however, “because they were usually communal and had

yielded the greatest wealth from which the tithe was taken.”666 To non-Akragantines, the

fact that both private and communal gains were dedicated (celebrated?) in public contexts

must have generated the major impression that the city was, on the whole, deeply

pocketed and focused on the collective glorification of the gods.

Conclusions

What I have identified in this chapter as an ideological emphasis on the broader

community and the ellision of private and public wealth and accomplishments in the

context of Greek colonial cities is not something that went completely unchallenged,

particularly after 500 BCE. The variation in the material record--as it relates to both

architecture or structural features and to more movable items-- and the sheer number of

sacred areas may in fact suggest a more fragmented system of religious organization

where different groups of worshippers regularly gathered in specific contexts for specific

purposes. The exclusivity of certain ritual activities as indicated by their material

correlates-- the casting of binding spells, ritualized weaving perhaps, the dedication of

metals-- point perhaps to more circumscribed ritual communities, who although they

participated in the broader framework of the communal religious life of the colony and

actively contributed towards the outward impression of a collectively-minded polis, also

existed independent of or in competition with it as well.

In sum, developments in both the religious architecture and practice of the Greek

colonies in Sicily show significant gains in the expression of community solidarity and

the promotion of collective potential between 650 and 400 BCE. These broader ideals

were registered through rituals that symbolically leveled the social differences that likely

266

665 Miles 2008: 43.666 Ibid.: 43-44.

existed between the participants. All of these practices, I believe, would have worked to

promote the perception, either real or imagined, of relative social equilibrium and

religious cohesion. At the same time, smaller, more exclusive groups co-existed and used

religion as a means of consolidating their non-polis identity. In these ways, the rise of

religious sanctuaries in the Greek colonies of Himera, Akragas and Selinus can be seen

not as simply the outward representation of the polis, but instead the place of its internal

manifestation and constant re-formulation.

267

Chapter 6

Phoenician-Punic religion in Sicily and Sardinia

Introduction

In Chapter 5, the major challenge was how to draw clear conclusions from the

deep and varied body of evidence that exists for the Greek colonies of central-western

Sicily. In the case of Phoenician religious space, a somewhat different obstacle bars the

way. This problem is not a lack of evidence per se, but rather a lack of good evidence that

meets the same chronological and geographical parameters of Archaic and Classical

Sicily and Sardinia. In Sicily, for example, although occupation has been securely

attested for all three of the major Phoenician-Punic settlements, the only site allowing the

identification of religious spaces has been possible has been Motya. The majority of

Phoenician Panormus presumably lies under the streets of modern Palermo and centuries

of continuous urban occupation. With Solunto, Phoenician-era material and even the

location of the original settlement remain rather obscure. Most references to sacred

spaces at Solunto furthermore pertain to areas identified in the late Punic (third century

BCE) or Roman settlement. Nevertheless, the excavations of Panormus and Solunto have

provided some scope for comparison: Panormus’s cemeteries have expanded the corpus

of Phoenician burials in Sicily, which increasingly has contributed to a better

understanding of the patterns and variation in Phoenician colonial social structure.

Similarly, although the material documented for Solunto is largely of a later date, there is

the potential for comparing it, even if somewhat schematically, to that of the earlier

religious spaces known from Motya. Thus, while any arguments are tempered by the

limited scope of the primary evidence, there is still enough need and justification for

using the material in a broader analysis in the future.

Compared with Sicily, the number of Phoenician settlements in Sardinia is far

greater. However, studies of Phoenician religious space there are still beleaguered by

difficulties, albeit slightly different ones. On the one hand, Iron Age and early Archaic

levels are clearly attested for most of the tophets-- i.e. the sanctuaries allegedly used for

268

the ritual of child sacrifice in Phoenician communities but which many archaeologists

now believe were primarily cemeteries for children who died before they had been fully

admitted into the community-- known from Sardinia and for a handful of non-tophet

sacred contexts. On the other hand, in the case of the non-tophet religious spaces, later

Classical and Hellenistic renovations and continuous occupation have left little in the way

of material remains that can be securely dated to the Phoenician period for most of the

settlements, other than architectural structures. Consequently, the particulars of religious

practice that otherwise might be obtained through the contextual analysis of the movable

material culture remain largely unattainable.

The discussion of the material is divided chronologically into three parts in this

chapter. The first part spans 750 to 550 BCE, the second covers 550 to 500 BCE, and the

third comprises 500 to 400 BCE. The primary reason for these chronological splits is to

keep the study of the religious developments reasonably in line with what is known of

Carthage’s rise to power. The widely accepted view that Carthage had firmly established

political dominion over all of Sardinia by the end of the sixth century, as Polybius’ record

of Rome’s 509 BCE treaty with Carthage seems to imply, has certainly come under

critique over the past twenty years.667 Yet, even though it is now acknowledged that

Carthage’s role was probably not as straightforward as older models of “vigorous

imperialism” once proposed, destruction levels and subsequent shifts in settlement

patterns among the Phoenician-Sardinian sites and their immediate territories do seem to

indicate widescale changes occurring near the close of the sixth century.668 The

destruction and political destabilization of many of the Phoenician cities is documented in

the break in the number of Phoenician-type imports for this period at indigenous

settlements and a shift away from Etruscan imports to new east Greek and southern

Italian products. Numerous literary references to Carthage and other signs of conflict

indicate that, at the very least, Carthage was widely perceived (and later promoted by

269

667 See Van Dommelen 1998, for example, contra Barreca 1986: 31-40; Tronchetti 1988: 101-11; Perra 1998.668 See Dyson and Rowland (2007: 111) for explicit references to modern imperialism; Tronchetti (1988: 88-89) provides a summary and references for the late sixth century destruction levels at Phoenician sites in Sardinia.

pro-Roman authors) as one of the foremost responsible parties for the upheavals and

military conflicts that defined the late Archaic and Classical west Mediterranean. Thus,

any analysis of the changes in the religious contexts of these sites must also take into

account this broader political background.669

For the rest of this chapter, I first provide a catalogue of religious developments

at Phoenician sites in Sicily and Sardinia. The state of the evidence means that a

quantitative method is not viable for the Phoenician material. There are, however,

tendencies within the material which suggest that religious culture in the Phoenician

colonies contrasts somewhat strongly with what was contemporarily in place in the Greek

colonies. I then discuss the overall patterns of Phoenician colonial religious developments

and how they compare to developments in Greek and indigenous Sicilian and Sardinian

religion. Finally, I turn to the socio-political implications of Phoenician colonial religious

organization and why this may be important for interpretations of how west

Mediterranean indigenous societies responded to it.

Religious Developments in the Phoenician West

750-550 BCE

As mentioned above, the earliest phases of Phoenician settlement in Sardinia and

Sicily are rather shadowy. However, of the evidence that is available, some of it comes

from areas that were later clearly sacred in nature. Between 750 and 625 BCE, religious

activity developed most clearly in open-air precincts without any major structural

features. In most cases, these precincts can be identified as tophets. The earliest tophet

levels at both Sulcis and Motya have been dated to the eighth century, while the tophets

at Tharros and Bithia began to be used between 700 and 650 BCE.670 Most of the tophets

appear to have been purposefully situated over abandoned indigenous sites, a pattern that

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669 As I will discuss further below, what is considered the ‘appropriate’ political backdrop can fluctuate between the narrower regional context (for example, Sardinia or Sicily) and the broader area of the West Mediterranean. 670 Chronological dating of the Motya and Sulcis tophets was made on finds of Protocorinthian-imitation and Pithecoussan pots found in the earliest levels (Tronchetti 1979: 202). Overviews of the tophets’ chronologies are available in Ciasca 1983 (Motya); Barreca 1985: 63-65 and Tronchetti 1979 (Sulcis); Acquaro et al. 1976-77; Ibid. 1977, and Moscati 1981 (Tharros); and Barreca 1965: 145-52; Ibid. 1986: 294-96 (Bithia).

directly contradicts the older belief that the Phoenicians insisted on tophets being “not

contaminated by earlier installations or previous occupation.”671 At Motya, local

indigenous-style handmade pots were found in tracts of the tophet, both with the earliest

tophet deposits and directly below them, while at Sulcis the large stone structure once

thought to be an altar for the tophet has now been shown to belong to an earlier

prehistoric phase.672 The Tharros tophet also used the remains of a nuragic village for its

main structural elements, even up into the Roman period.673 Later tophets in Sardinia

show the same proclivity for being located over conspicuous indigenous remains— the

tophets at Nora, Karalis, and Monte Sirai are all superimposed over earlier nuragic

buildings, too. There is no indication that the various indigenous remains were

necessarily part of pre-existing religious spaces, so the topographic pattern among the

tophets does not seem to be related to issues of cultic continuity. However, the choice to

situate a civic sanctuary in an area that, in most cases, was clearly previously occupied

must be meaningful.

From their earliest installations, tophets were always situated in areas that were

separated from normal settlement sectors. Proper permanent temene seem to be a slightly

later development, yet the tophets are distinguished by their distance to the early

domestic sectors and by their constant position to the north of the settlements. Tophets

also exploited areas with distinctive natural features. At Sulcis and Bithia they were

located in areas of general natural significance-- the former in the rocky “Guardia e is

Pingiadas” area, the latter on the highest part of the Su Cardulinu islet--, but they also

centered activity on large rocks, which were then surrounded by enclosures or given other

specialized treatment. The rock at Sulcis was incised with the letter “A,” described as “of

evidently magical-religious value, but of unclear significance,” and at Bithia a base

(“Building C,” 6 x 7 m.) was built on top of a projecting rock.674 At Motya too the earliest

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671 Moscati 1981: 32.672 Ciasca et al. 1964: 60; Isserlin and du Plat Taylor 1974: 72-73.673 Acquaro 1979: 58.674 On Sulcis: Barreca 1985: 63; Ibid. 1986: 316. In the earlier report, the inscribed symbol was actually described as the number 4, as opposed to the alpha. On Bithia: Barreca 1965: 145-52; Ibid. 1986: 294-96. Barreca labeled the Bithian structure a bamah or open-air altar that was placed at the highest point of the sanctuary.

tophet phase centered on a natural rock outcrop at the north end of the sanctuary; a small

terrace was built up in front of this to capitalize on the location as well.

Most of the early sanctuaries were not all that visually striking. The space they

occupied was usually very modest and architectural embellishment was sparse.675 Actual

buildings or shrines in the sanctuary were rare.676 Only the Sulcis sanctuary contained a

shrine, but it was quite small, had no roof, and its “Archaic” remains are paltry.677 An

“archaic altar” was identified alongside the access-ramp of the shrine; a large bank of

ashes and burnt bone fragments, still partially conserved, led to the suggestion that this

area was used for the “holocausts” incurred during the tophet rituals.678 However,

whether these elements belong to the earliest phase of the Sulcis tophet’s use or slightly

later is unclear. No structures have been documented for the earliest tophet levels at

Motya and Tharros, although this changed fairly rapidly at Motya.679 Architecturally

speaking, none of these sanctuaries necessarily show a “public display of wealth” or a

specialized type of architecture.

Material correlates of religious ritual are present for the early tophets, but are of a

somewhat limited scope. The most telling characteristic of a tophet, of course, are the

deposits of urns filled with the burnt remains of children, usually within zero and six

months of age.680 The consistency in the types of vessels used and the way that they were

deposited indicate a specific mode of ritual and specialized cult equipment. However, the

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675 Cf. Acquaro et al. 1977: 68.676 Indeed, it should be noted that even the base at Bithia could only be vaguely dated to the “seventh-sixth century” BCE, as based on an Archaic vessel found directly under the base’s foundation (Barreca 1965: 149).677 Barreca (1985: 64) lists “some small stones and mortar” as the archaic remains for the shrine; Ibid. 1986: 317-18. Bartoloni 1989: 50-55.678 The publications largely leave it to guesswork as to what phase of the sanctuary (either “Phoenician” or “Archaic Punic”) the shrine should belong, but given the comparative material from other Phoenician sanctuaries in Sardinia, Sicily, and Carthage, the “archaic” date of the shrine proper seems more likely to fall somewhere in the sixth century BCE as opposed to the late eighth/early seventh century BCE. This date, however, would not rule out an earlier use of the inscribed stone that seems to have operated as the sanctuary’s center, as Bartoloni (1989: 52) has noted. 679 The terrace would be the small, northern structure constituted by walls A and B, originally excavated (and not published) by Whitaker and explored further by the Sopritendeza team in the early 1960s (Ciasca et al. 1964: 47-50).680 Fedele and Foster 1988. It should be noted, of course, that the remains of children outside of this range—most notably, those belonging to a child of five years and nine months from Tharros-- have also been documented.

actual number of urns attributed to these early levels is notably low for all three of the

tophets; at Motya, the excavator of the tophet had an impression of the city as “a center of

limited size or of scarse population (or, at least, of scarse population of a young age).”681

The conclusion seems to be that while tophet ritual and its accoutrements were already

formalized, it took some time for it to gain wider currency. Indeed, over the course of the

seventh century, tophet deposits increased by leaps and bounds. Deposits for the later

seventh-century layer at Motya (“Layer 6”), for example, grew over 300%, a fact that can

be partially but probably not exclusively attributed to demographic expansion.682

Offerings only accompanied the urn deposits sporadically during this period, but

when they were present, they usually came from a single urn and involved several

ornamental or prestige items. An urn from the third level at Tharros, for example, dating

to the seventh century BCE, included a silver ring, three silver and bronze pendants, and

three glass paste amulets. More items were being left by the end of the seventh century,

all of which show an increase in the overall wealth being invested in the urn offerings.

Jewelry and amulets were made of precious metals, ivory and bone, terracotta, and glass

paste, but there were also miniature vessels, perfume unguents, and cosmetic powders,

and even more exceptional objects such as the seventh-century inscribed gold leaf and

faience flask from Sulcis.683

Whether the burnt remains of the urns are evidence of sacrifice is a far more

complicated issue. Most of the complexity stems from the question of whether the

Phoenicians practiced mlk (human or infant) sacrifice. Altars were present within or very

closely associated with the tophet, while burnt animal bones were occasionally present

alongside human remains in the urns. Sacrifice, to one degree or another, was certainly a

part of the tophet ritual. Perhaps one way of seeing the tophet evidence is that the death

of a child by natural causes was already a sacrifice in itself suffered by the family,

particularly if cultural norms explain death in terms of divine authority over the lives of

humans. Seen from this angle, the “holocaust” of children taken too early in life is a way

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681 Ciasca 1983: 619.682 Ibid.: 620.683 Boardman (ed.) 1991: 508.

of symbolically replacing an event that is universally difficult to accept-- the death of a

child, particularly a newborn-- with something that is understood: a sacrifice to god(s)

who are seeking vengeance, need consolation, are due tribute or should be appeased.

There are few non-tophet sanctuaries during this first phase. Three or four Phoenician

sanctuaries in Sicily and Sardinia may have had late eighth- or seventh-century phases.

The earliest could go back to the ninth-eighth century BCE, if one takes the phrase ‘lpmy’

in the final line of the Nora stele inscription as indicative of a sanctuary dedicated to the

Phoenician god Pumay at Nora.684 Complementary archaeological evidence for this

sanctuary remains allusive, however, leaving the issue mostly speculative.685 More can be

gleaned from the so-called “high place of Tanit,” also at Nora, although chronology is

again problematic. Ida Oggiano and Sandro Bondì both guess that the area is “probably

older” than the other known sanctuaries in Nora, which would date it back to some point

before the mid-sixth century BCE. “High place” is somewhat of a misnomer given that

it’s only 11 meters above sea level, but it is at the most elevated point of the Nora

peninsula. The area was originally designated as a sanctuary after the discovery of a

pyramidal stone or betyl that was found partially interred in the surface.686 Yet, over the

years, it has been variously interpreted as a temple, lighthouse, part of the fortifications,

place of cult, and place of civic gathering.687 The lack of consensus stems mostly from

the fact that the only preserved remains are the substructures of an almost square base,

measuring 11 x 10 meters and labeled the “dado centrale” in the site reports.688 The

recovery of fragments of a gola egizia cornice downslope from the “dado” and the

excavation of a well filled with Phoenician, Punic, and Roman pottery as well as a

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684 Peckham (1972) and Cross (1972) give conflicting translations and interpretations of the stone’s inscription. Amadasi Guzzo (1987) dates the stone to the 830 BCE, based on the shape of the letters and Cypriot parallels. More recent research has dated the stone more conservatively, mostly to the mid-eighth century BCE (Bondì 2003: 75; Oggiano 2005: 1029-30).685 A certain number of blocks re-used in the later Coltellazzo sacred building have suggested to some scholars the presence of “monumental” architecture at Nora already inside the first half of the sixth century. Sandro Bondì writes, for instance, that “the reference to the ‘main temple of the Cape of Nora’ cited in the inscription of the celebrated stele of Nora, dated to no later than the end of the VIII century BCE is suggestive, but in no way affirmative” (Bondì 2005: 583).686 Patroni 1904: 32 and fig. 5; Chiera 1978: 50; Perra 1998: 177-79.687 Bondì 2005: 584; Oggiano 2005: 1036-37.688 Pesce 1972: 47-48; Bondì 1980: 260; Ibid. 2005: 584-85; Finocchi forthcoming.

notable quantity of animal bones would seem to suggest, though, that the area’s religious

associations extend back to the Phoenician period.689

At Tharros, the Capo San Marco shrine was built at the southern tip of the

promontory, very close to one of the city’s necropoleis as well as to the prehistoric

remains of the Baboe Cabizza nuraghe. The shrine was rectangular (12.65 x 7.5 m.) and

was built with small, irregular stones.690 One entered the shrine through an entry on one

of the long sides and into a small passage (room A) that gave access to the main, larger

room (room B) via a row of columns between the two rooms. The passage also opened

onto a smaller room that was built off the northern side of rooms A and B, which Barreca

labeled the shrine’s penetrale.691 Two main features indicated the building’s sacred

function. First, a square sandstone block was found affixed to the northeast wall of the

larger room B, in perfect alignment with the two middle columns in the row that

separated room B from passage A. Laying on the pavement next to this squared block

was another stone in the shape of a small triangular pyramid or betyl (ca. 48 cm(h) x 30

cm(w)).692 The second feature was a stone bench set up against the northeast wall of the

penetrale; a roughly circular-shaped rise in the pavement in front of the bench was also

noted. Traces of red plaster were also found inside the room, suggesting that the interior

walls of the penetrale were painted at some point.693 No other remains were catalogued

for the shrine, although Barreca notes an absence of sigillata pottery.

In Sicily, the area of the “Cappiddazzu” sanctuary, located at the highest part of the

island of Motya (5 m. above sea level), documents human presence from at least the end

of the eighth century. In the 1970s, Vincenzo Tusa’s excavations identified a series of

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689 The area suffers from a complete lack of occupation layers making it difficult for scholars to date (Perra 1998: 67, 178).690 Barreca 1958: 409. The shrine is particularly important since it is one of the few early Phoenician religious structures not to have undergone extensive reconstructions during either the late Punic or Roman periods. 691 The building appears similar to numismatic depictions of the sanctuary at Byblos, and other features, such as the row of columns separating the main room and passageway and the entrance on one of the long sides of the building, have parallels with other Phoenician-Punic sanctuaries in Cyprus, El Hofra, and Carthage. 692 Barreca 1958: 411.693 Ibid.

fossae beneath the central part of the (fourth-century BCE) three-roomed monument.694

Large quantities of animal bones, particularly of ovicaprids and cows, earth mixed with

ash, and Archaic pottery fragments, along with some that were dated to the end of the

eighth century BCE, were extracted from the fossae, leading Tusa to argue that the

trenches “clearly involved trenches dug into the rock and used for sacred purposes.”695

He further proposed that the burnt animal remains and trenches were part of a larger

open-air temenos area that would have constituted the first phase of the Cappiddazzu

sanctuary.696

550-500 BCE

Around the middle of the sixth century BCE, there was a noticeable change in

both the number and aspect of Phoenician sacred spaces in Sicily and Sardinia. Patterns

in the material are distorted towards religious developments in Sardinia, again because

fewer Phoenician sites have been fully excavated in Sicily. The mid-sixth century BCE

shift can be understood both in relatively simple quantitative terms, such as the

materialization of new sanctuaries, and in more qualitative ones, such as the re-

organization or elaboration of pre-existing sacred areas and the introduction of new forms

of material culture to the activities of the sanctuaries.

The transformation of Phoenician tophets from rather plain open-air precincts to

sharply defined areas with high stone walls, one or more shrine-like features with simple

yet still distinctive architectural decoration, and built altars, is one of the more striking

developments in Phoenician religious practice during this period. At Motya, the first

major reorganization of the tophet occurred around 550 BCE. Since its beginning, most

of the tophet’s activity had concentrated around the rock-spur at the north end.

Throughout the seventh century, deposits had increasingly been made further south,

filling an area of roughly 40 square meters, and gradually raising the surface level as urns

were continually laid on top of older ones. The absolute chronology of what happened

around the middle of the sixth century is puzzling, but it is clear that the final use of the

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694 V. Tusa 1973: 26-27, 30.695 V. Tusa 2000: 1398; see also V. Tusa 1970; Ibid. 1973: 7-10.696 It should also be noted that sixth-century BCE Cappiddazzu structure was built directly over the trenches and their associated materials, with a fill layer separating them.

original sector saw a decrease in the number of deposits made in the tophet, the novel

utilization of cysts for protecting the urns, and the introduction of stelai for marking (at

least some of) the deposits.697

The end of this depositional phase (“layer V” in terms of the Motyan stratigraphy)

probably also marks the beginning of the more dramatic physical transformations that the

sanctuary incurred. Many, if not most, of the stelai were removed from their original

positions and reused as building elements in a general expansion of the sanctuary. A large

dump of stelai was laid on top of the most recent depositional layer (i.e. layer V again),

perhaps sealing off the preceding levels of urns from either additional deposits or the

removal of the older ones. Other stelai were added to pre-existing walls built to protect

the main depositional area. Several new structures were built as well. These included an

artificial terrace to the east of the older depositional area and a high containment wall

along the northern and eastern boundaries of the tophet to accompany the southern

enclosure wall.698 Although the “terrace” formed gradually-- the result of continual urn

deposits and dumps of clay fill in between them-- its visible impact on the sanctuary

would have still been great: the opening of that much space, as well as the construction of

several larger and more dominant walls, would have altered the appearance of the tophet

significantly.

In regards to the religious character of the sanctuary, “Shrine A,” located in the

western part of the tophet and probably serving in some way as its western physical

boundary, can be understood both as another sign of the increasing physicality of the

tophet and/or as an indication of shifts in religious practice.699 The building was only

identifiable through cuts made for its foundation, but materials found in the vicinity

indicated that it would have most likely been a one-room, covered structure probably

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697 The details of “layer V” of the Motya tophet are discussed in Ciasca 1967.698 A summary of the excavation of the artificial terrace is available in Ciasca 1968: 51-52; earlier reports confuse the layers of the eastern terrace with the “oldest” phases of the tophet, but provide more of the details in regards to the individual layers and their deposits (see Ciasca et al. 1964; Ciasca 1966; Ibid. 1967). The absolute dates of the tophet’s enclosure walls are similarly somewhat difficult to interpret, but the excavation reports situate them within the “organic reorganization of the sanctuary” that is generally dated to the mid-sixth century (Ciasca 1968: 52-53).699 The main discussions of “Shrine A” (also referred to as “Vano A” and the “orthostats structure” are found in Ciasca 1972: 96-99; Ibid. 1973: 66-69; Ibid. 1983: 620.

involving Doric capitals. The central part of the structure had a fine and solid pavement

made out of calcite slabs and the structure seems to have been supported by a series of

terrace walls to the west. A series of installations were associated with the building, all of

which may have fulfilled different ritual functions. A podium made of rough stones and

slabs was added to the eastern part of the shrine, and probably served as a support for a

cult object (as opposed to an altar since there were no signs of burning, bone, or ash).

Outside the structure, a well that originally may have been used for cultic purposes was

found to the east. Only a few remains were inside the shrine proper, mostly pots dated to

the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Around the middle of the fifth century BCE, the

shrine was dismantled down to its foundations, leaving only the foundation trenches in

place and filling parts of them with votive material. The terminus post quem provided by

the date of the votive material thus means that the shrine probably stood for only 50 to 60

years.

In Sardinia, two more Phoenician settlements established tophets. The tophet at

Nora is near the modern church of Sant’Efisio on the promontory of Capo di Pula, north

of the city walls.700 The oldest stelai there belong to the sixth century BCE, but the

chronology of the tophet’s development is more obscure because of the nature of early

excavation methods.701 Vivanet’s late nineteenth-century explorations identified a

semicircular area, surrounded by a high wall, near the shore, about 40 meters to the east

of the urn deposits.702 Traces of burning in the area suggested that it might have been a

pyre of some type, but little else can be said about it, particularly in regards to its

foundation.703 Early digs also exposed the remains of a nearly-square room (7.5 x 6.8 m.)

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700 Vivanet 1891; Chiera 1978: 38; Barreca 1986: 311; Tronchetti 1986a.701 Chronology for the stelai found in the Nora tophet is discussed in Moscati and Uberti 1970: 43-45. The structures probably date at least in part to the late fourth or third centuries, a date that is deduced from Barreca’s (1986: 311) comment that the sector involved in the 1889 excavation mostly dated to the third century BCE.702 Vivanet 1891: 300.703 Ibid.; Chiera (1978:38) also notes that if the area could be proven to be a pyre, this might support Moscati’s argument that tophet sacrifices took place outside the tophet proper, in particularly designated areas.

built out of large stones and the remains of another wall on the “limit of the

necropolis.”704

Another sixth-century tophet has been posited at Karalis, near the modern church

of San Paulo. Archaic material is generally sparse for Karalis: only a small number of

pottery fragments can be dated to the seventh century BCE and all of them came from

disturbed contexts.705 The majority of the urns and undecorated (save one with a “sign of

Tanit”) cippi in the tophet date to the fifth century BCE, but a few could go back to the

sixth century. Little else has been published about the site. Not all tophets underwent

major architectural alterations; some did not experience any at all, in fact. At Tharros,

most of the new building in the tophet area involved the construction of new enclosure

walls and a well on the northern and eastern boundaries.706 Elsewhere in Sardinia, no new

structures were added to the Archaic tophets at Bithia or Sulcis.

The absence of a structural overhaul did not prevent other, more restrained

changes from happening, however. Several tophets expanded out from the older centers

of ritual attention, and most saw increases in the number of deposits.707 At Sulcis, Bithia

and Motya, an adjustment to the depositional ritual was made in which small groups of

urns were surrounded with stones as a form of protection for the urns. Worshippers at the

Tharros tophet also switched from leaving urns in the soil to placing them within the

foundations of the more ancient nuragic buildings, using the large basalt boulders of the

nuraghe structures to seal off and protect the tophet urns.708

But, perhaps the most visible change in tophet practices during the sixth century

was in dedicatory behavior, particularly in the use of votive stelai. At Motya, stelai first

clearly appear in layer V (mid-sixth century BCE), and continue to be used with variable

degrees of intensity in successive phases. Sardinian stelai have a similar chronology,

which, as many other scholars have noted, reflects the fact that the appearance of stelai in

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704 Vivanet 1891: 302.705 Cf. Tronchetti 1995: 722; Van Dommelen 1998: 82.706 Acquaro (1996: 53-54) believes these projects to have been in conjunction with the general sixth-century BCE reorganization of the Su Muru Mannu hill and the city’s fortifications.707 At Sulcis, for example, urns were increasingly deposited further away from the original focal point of the natural rock and more towards the eastern end of the sanctuary (Bartoloni 1989: 54).708 Cf. “Vano 1” as discussed by Acquaro et al. 1976: 199.

the context of the tophet was a widespread development among Phoenician settlements

during the sixth century BCE.709 Stelai have largely been resigned to art historical

approaches, so it is perhaps not surprising that their appearance alongside more sweeping

changes in dedicatory practice during the sixth century has been downplayed. Non-urn or

stele offerings increased in both number and wealth at this time, expanding on the

developments of the preceding century. The majority of the “offerings” from Tharros, for

example, date between 550 and 500 BCE, including 190 amulets, numerous beads,

lamps, bronze plates, and one particularly interesting lead object in the shape of a tripod.

At Motya, personal ornaments--mostly of small rings or beads of silver, bronze, bone,

and glass-paste-- as well as lamps, miniature betyls, glass paste amulets, and other objects

were deposited inside the cinerary vessels for the first time during the sixth century.710 I

would argue, then, that the shift to using dedicatory stelai is important not only for the

visual impact it would have made in the tophet, but also for how it relates to larger

changes in ritual practice.

This claim is highlighted by the large quantities of anthropomorphic figurines

found in the Motya tophet.711 Most of the terracottas were probably originally deposited

during the later sixth or early fifth century BCE, but were later gathered with more recent

deposits and left in large votive dumps in various parts of the sanctuary.712 Over 300

figurines, largely depicting female figures that scholars believe are deities, come from

various deposits in the sanctuary. Male figures are not absent, but are distinctly fewer in

number: only nine examples have been listed among the finds. Significantly, a large

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709 Cf. Moscati and Uberti 1970; Ibid. 1985. 710 Ciasca 1978: 128-29; Cecchini 1969: 95. 711 Figurines have also been found at Tharros and Nora, but as isolated deposits and dating to later periods. Four figurines are listed as coming from the Tharros tophet (Acquaro et al. 1976: 206; Barreca 1986: 286; Acquaro 1996: 60) and two from Nora that date to the archaic period (Vivanet 1891: 301; Chiera 1978:47). If figurines were found at Sulcis, they have yet to be published.712 The two largest deposits came from the northern and western parts of the tophet. The northern deposit, consisting of 111 intact or fragmentary figurines, was clearly a collective dump of material that spanned a period from the second half of the sixth century up to the first half of the fourth century BCE. Another deposit was slightly larger (over 130 figurines), dated between the late 6th and mid-5th c. BCE, and probably had some relation with “Shrine A,” since the material was found to the west of the structure and in its foundation cuts. Other groups of figurines as well as isolated statuettes were found in elsewhere in the tophet as well, bringing the total number discovered in the tophet to around 328. See original reports in Amadasi Guzzo 1969: 54-55; Moscati 1972: 101-108; Bevilacqua 1972: 113-117; and Uberti 1973: 73-84.

percentage of the figurines were also classified as “Greek-style;” Francesco Bevilacqua

argued, in fact, that in almost all cases the stamp-produced figurines were clearly Siceliot,

while Maria Amadasi Guzzo noted favoritism towards Akragantine models.713

Prior to 550 BCE, only three or four areas have “material correlates” of religious

activity, but are not part of a tophet. The evidence changes significantly for the period

after 550, as non-tophet sanctuaries seem to have become a more regular part of

Phoenician urban development. In short, at least fifteen Phoenician sanctuaries not

affiliated with a tophet were in place by the close of the sixth century BCE.714

The oldest structure for this phase (c. 600 BCE) was an earlier version of the so-

called Coltellazzo temple at Nora, located at the base of the Coltellazzo hill on the

periphery of the domestic sector and jutting out towards the sea.715 Little can be said

about the structure other than that it appears to have used monumental blocks in its

construction.716 Between 550 and 500 BCE, several new structures were added to the

area, the primary one of which was a monumental, open-air terrace (17 x 15 m.) with a

central, unroofed structure inside it. An elevated altar was inside the structure, along the

west wall.717 A smallish room (4 x 2.5 m.) west of the terrace and on the same alignment

with the central enclosure was also part of the complex.718 The lack of occupation levels

deprives us of any proof that the area was used for religious activity, but the finds of a

clay plaque of a miniature shrine, a gola egizia cornice, and a throne-cippus in the area

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713 Bevilacqua 1972: 115; Amadasi Guzzo 1969: 53.714 Evidence of non-tophet sacred areas originating between 550 and 500 BCE has been attested at Nora, Tharros, Bithia, Karalis, Monte Sirai, Capo Frasca, Antas, and Porto Pino in Sardinia. Isolated material indicates that additional sanctuaries were probably at Othoca and, at the end of the 6th or early 5th century, Neapolis. In Sicily, far more evidence comes from Motya, but the spike in late Archaic burials at Panormus and Solunto indicate that something similar, yet archaeologically inaccessible, was conceivably happening at those sites as well.715 Dating to the later sixth century is based on Phoenician and Etruscan bucchero fragments found in the layer that sealed the stones of the main structure (Oggiano 2000: 163-64).716 Based on finds of large sandstone blocks found in part of the fill and in the “vespaio” of the later 6th-c. complex (Oggiano 2000: 163; Ibid. 2005: 1031). Bondì (2005: 583) hesitantly links the archaeological material to the Nora stele, stating that, “the reference to the ‘principal temple of the Cape of Nogar’ cited at the beginning of the celebrated inscribed Nora stele, dated no later than the end of the 8th century BC, is suggestive, but in no way confirmable.” 717 Oggiano 2000; Ibid. 2005: 1031-32.718 Bondì 2005: 584-85.

strengthen the designation.719 Ida Oggiano has cited parallels between the Coltellazzo

area and cultic terraces known from the eastern Mediterranean (“high places” or

“bamot”), some of which date as far back to the first millennium BCE (e.g. Tell Dan and

perhaps Monte Ebal). She also believes that the topographic position of the sanctuary is

comparable to another sacred area at Nora on Sa Punta ‘e su Coloru.720 During the

Roman period, the entire area was revamped.

Different types of sanctuaries were at Karalis and may go back to the sixth

century as well. The sanctuary of Ashtart Ericina was a mostly open-air cult area located

on a hill at the end of the Sant’Elia promontory. The main physical features of the

sanctuary were cisterns, small walls, and channels, all of which had been cut into the

rock. This arrangement directed the flow of water down from the edges and into the

cisterns, reserving the water for cult purposes. The sanctuary also had a passage that cut

into the eastern edge of the hill, right where there was a rock cleft shaped like a ‘V’ with

a series of steps cut into the rock. There, excavators found a dedicatory inscription to

Ashtart Ericina. It’s likely that this sanctuary was not fully dedicated to Ashtart until the

fourth century or later, but the lack of stratified remains has made it impossible to date

precisely. The physical qualities of the place, however, have suggested that its use goes

back to the sixth century. More securely Archaic is the sanctuary that lay to the northwest

of the site near the Stagno di Santa Gilla, probably dedicated to Sid or a similar male

divinity. Barreca describes the deposits in the sanctuary as including many terracotta

protomes and small sculptures from the deposits. The sanctuary was dated on the basis of

a mask of male, bearded divinity and a terracotta head of a female figurine. Other

statuettes of the divinity Bes range between the late sixth and third centuries BCE.

Another sanctuary was built just off the coast of Bithia, on the Isola di Tuerradda.

Walls measuring at least 12 meters gave the impression of a somewhat monumental

structure located there, on the highest part of the island; substantial quantities of Archaic

pots were also visible on the surface. A new sanctuary also seems to have been built at

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719 The gola egizia fragment is reported in Oggiano 2003; the throne-cippus is included in Tore’s (1991a) catalogue.720 Oggiano 2005: 1033.

Tharros between 550 and 500 BCE. Excavations revealed an area in the southern part of

the urban center that was characterized by a large, approximately square space, cut into

the rocky flank of the hill and surrounded by a quadriporticus.721 Traces of a large

rectangular structure with two bases on either side of the entrance were visible

underneath the quadriporticus. The lack of functionally-specific material within the

structure made it difficult to interpret, but Barreca believed that its topographic position

and the presence of a well, made it “plausible” that this was a sacred area of “Semitic

type.”722

At nearby Othoca, there is hardly any good Archaic evidence for religious activity,

but the size of the settlement suggests that at least one religious area existed in the town,

which was probably established around 600 BCE by Tharros for better access to the

Campidano plain. Isolated finds of dedicatory materials have been found in various parts

of the modern city of Oristano, the oldest of which was found along Via Indipendenza

and consisted of a fragment of a female statuette standing and holding a tamburello or

bell-type object.723 Numerous fourth-century kernophoroi were also found at Basilica

Santa Giusta, the probable acropolis of ancient Othoca, but the presence of both nuragic

and Phoenician constructions suggested that the area may have had some Archaic and

Classical religious functions as well.724

At each of the major Phoenician centers in southwestern Sardinia, then, at least

one sacred area-- either a tophet or other type of sanctuary-- was established in the mid-

to late sixth century BCE. But also emerging during this period were a small number of

sacred areas outside of the major urban nuclei. In some cases, like the possible Archaic

sacred area at Monte Sirai, these new religious areas were inserted into the fabric of

smaller “capillary” Phoenician-Punic settlements founded inland from the coast between

the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. In other cases, the sanctuaries appear rather isolated

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721 Barreca 1985: 286.722 Ibid.723 The tamburello makes an appearance on many stelai from Tharros and Sulcis and has been imagined as a significant cultic implement used in rituals.724 Additional (later) material was casually found in the southern part of the city (a clay phallus), Via Satta (a male protome, perhaps of an African), and the bottom of S. Giusta lagoon (a life-sized female head).

and show few signs of being unequivocally affiliated with any particular settlement.

Smaller rural settlements were sometimes nearby, but the lack of substantive remains

makes it hard to justify how or why sites like those would have had a large sanctuary in

their vicinity. Finally, in a few cases, the “new” sanctuaries pertain to Phoenician-Punic

reuse of older nuragic sanctuaries. In all of these situations, the establishment of new

sacred areas indicates a wider development in Phoenician colonialism and has broad

implications for assessing the impact their religion had on their surroundings.

Most of the religious material from Monte Sirai that comes from the acropolis

“mastio shrine” dates to the fourth century BCE, but the shrine also appears to have had

“public” functions, perhaps religious in nature, that go back to the site’s earlier

occupation. A prehistoric nuraghe was incorporated into the Phoenician fortress during

the seventh century and functioned as the core of the mastio. The fortress fulfilled a

somewhat narrow military capacity up until the sixth century, when a residential quarter

rose up just to south of the mastio. Excavations in the 1960s and 1980s revealed that the

mastio was clearly a focus of cult activity in the late fourth/early third century BCE.725 In

a small part of the mastio, however, both mixed and sealed layers produced material that

dated to the sixth and fifth centuries BCE.726 Several of these objects, as well as a certain

number of animal bones and ash, seem to have been religiously significant, such as a clay

mask, two bronzetti of Phoenician type, plaques of terracotta and bone, and burnt

Phoenician and nuragic pots.727 The most significant find was an Archaic statuette of a

female figure (Astarte?) that has often been called the shrine’s cult statue.728 Interestingly,

a deposit that looks strongly like an Archaic foundation deposit was found almost directly

below this statue and the other associated cult objects.729 The presence of sixth-century

religious material in the same location as the later cult place has suggested that the area

may have fulfilled a sacred role quite early on for the community living at Monte Sirai.730

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725 Barreca 1965: 41-44.726 Ibid.: 47-48, 58-59.727 Ibid.: 55-58; Barreca 1966: 21-23.728 Barreca 1965: 58; Bartoloni, Bondì, and Marras 1992: 45.729 Barreca 1966: 23.730 Alternatively, there may have been another early cult area elsewhere at Monte Sirai whose cult materials were later relocated to the new religious center in the mastio.

Ptolemy’s descriptions of a temple of Sardus Pater “near the mouth of the Sacred

River” indicated for a long time that another substantial temple existed outside of the

cities. At first it was thought that the temple should be identified with the isolated remains

of a Phoenician-Punic rectangular structure (12 x 10 m.) and a later Roman public

building on the end of Capo Frasca (near the modern town of San Antonio di Santadi).731

Different remains were later excavated at Antas, which were definitively related to the

cult of Sardus Pater. Interestingly, Barreca believed that there were multiple temples to

Sardus Pater in Sardinia, with one at Antas, the other on Capo Frasca, another on the

periphery of Karalis at the Stagno di Santa Gilla.732 Of the three, the building at Antas is

the best documented, although mentioned earlier, there were some sixth-century materials

in the Santa Gilla sanctuary at Karalis. The Antas temple was built at the end of the sixth

century, on a modest ridge at the southern end of the Monte Conca S’omu mountain

range. Bondì has contended that it was “probably the successor of an earlier local cult of

a deity who was rapidly assimilated with the divinity of the Carthaginian cult.”733 Three

tombs that were part of an Iron Age (ninth-eighth c. BCE) nuragic village and necropolis

were found to the south of the temple. A bronze figurine of a nude male holding a lance

was found inside one of the tombs and is thought to have perhaps represented “Sardus,” a

divine personage thought to have been the Sardinian counterpart of Sid.734

The original Phoenician-Punic structure was heavily damaged when the Roman-

Italic temple was built, probably during the Augustan period; Barreca believes, however,

that none of the “elements of essential importance” were completely destroyed.735 Around

500 BCE, the main physical expression of the cult was a “sacred rock” that served as an

open-air altar, as shown by both traces of burning and the abundant amount of ashes and

small bones in its immediate vicinity. Shortly thereafter, the rock was reinforced with

walls, forming a proper elevated altar, which was then adjoined to the western wall of a

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731 Barreca 1975: 126. 732 Ibid.733 Bondì 1987b: 187.734 Zucca 1989: 14, 27.735 Barreca et al. 1969: 34.

rectangular, open-air shrine (9 x 18 m.).736 The area of the sanctuary was, finally,

enclosed by an enormous temenos wall measuring 68 meters per side. The shrine was

largely restructured around 300 BCE, following Punic-Hellenistic models of the time.

Most of the decorative materials that were found being reused as building material in the

Roman structure’s staircase-- a gola egizia cornice, parts of columns, two stucco-painted

Doric capitals-- date to this second phase, as do the famous Punic dedications found in

the sanctuary.737 A single votive plaque that was found with the others can be securely

dated to the sixth or fifth century BCE. It was made out of bronze and read,

“[-]rtyathon[-] the duty [-] son of Barguish […s]on of Baalyassaf [-] son of Magonit [-]

the covering of the roof (?) [-] rish, son of Arish.”738

The sanctuary at Porto Pino (also known as Porto Botto) was not as solitary as the

others, since it seems to have been part of a smaller settlement and port on the southern

coast of Sardinia, at the modern town of Guardia sa Perda.739 But, the presence of a large

structure with religious functions in a minor Phoenician settlement during a relatively

early part of the colonial period is rather exceptional and should perhaps be seen as part

of the outward growth of Phoenician sacred areas as opposed to strictly urban

development. Pottery scattered over the ground and the construction technique suggested

to Barreca that both the settlement and the presumed sacred area dated to the Archaic

period.740 The main structure of the sanctuary was a large, rectangular building (15 x 25

m.), that was composed of three flanking parts, all constructed with large, roughly-cut

polygonal stone blocks.

These were the new sacred areas involved in the sixth-century shift in the

conception of formalized religious activity in Sardinia. If the focus moves back to Sicily,

the picture changes somewhat. Unlike the Phoenician cities in Sardinia, Motya

experienced a true explosion in religious building activity around the mid-sixth century

BCE. In addition to the expansion and the addition of Shrine A to the tophet, the people

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736 Zucca 1989: 34.737 Barreca et al. 1969: 36-38, 41.738 Zucca 1989: 38-39.739 Barreca 1966: 140-41; Bondì 1987a: 158.740 Barreca 1966: 141.

of Motya also gave the Cappiddazzu sanctuary its first built structure. Between 550 and

500 BCE, they also built the new “western sanctuary” just outside of the city’s northern

gate, and they started a monumental building project with the “Kothon sanctuary.”

The Archaic Cappiddazzu sanctuary consisted of a temenos wall (27.4 x 35.4 m.),

a modest structure that was probably covered, and a small slab with a central cavity and

semi-circular ends that Tusa believed supported three betyls.741 The exact layout of the

shrine itself is still unclear, since both early excavations jumbled the layers and later

building activity covered the Archaic levels. From the plans, however, it seems feasible

that the sixth-century shrine included a well near its center, a hearth, and perhaps a type

of platform on its eastern wall.742 Based on other contemporary Phoenician parallels, this

hypothesis does not seem too far off base, particularly given the fact that both the

dimensions (roughly square, 8 x 7.3 m.) and the orientation of the corners towards

cardinal points correspond closely to Archaic sacred buildings at Carthage, Tharros, and

Nora. Large quantities of ash, carbon residue, and animal bones, particularly of bovines

and ovicaprids, were found at all levels of the sanctuary, similar to the faunal remains that

came from the Iron Age fossae. The disturbance of the layers and selective reporting

makes it difficult to put too much weight on the quantitative measurements of the

pottery.743

Another sanctuary was erected outside Motya’s north gate somewhere around 550

to 525 BCE, the so-called “western sanctuary.”744 Its construction appears to be

contemporary to that of Motya’s stone city wall, with a terminus post quem of 600 BCE

for the city wall. The sanctuary was composed of three main features: a shrine,

(approximately square, measuring 3.93 x 4.11 m.), an altar just to the front of the shrine,

and a temenos with stone foundations and mud-brick walls. Architectural finds and a

change in the building technique in one wall suggest that a later addition was made to the

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741 The Archaic phase of the Cappiddazzu sanctuary is discussed in V. Tusa 1964; Ibid. 1968; Ibid. 1969; and Ibid. 1970. On the three-betyl “altar,” see V. Tusa 1964: 38; Ibid. 2000: 1399.742 Cf. Tusa 1973: fig. 1.743 Based on reported quantities across levels in Tusa 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973.744 Coldstream (1962-63) noted traces of occupation that pre-dated the Phoenician settlement, while Isserlin and du Plat Taylor (1974: 71-72) identifed a second “pre-city wall” Phoenician phase without any post-seventh-century pottery.

shrine at some point.745 At least one Doric and two other “wholly oriental” capitals, all of

which seem to date to the late sixth century BCE, decorated the exterior of the shrine,

which may indicate that it was a shrine in antis.746 No pottery was included in the

original description of the sanctuary, but there was a brief note regarding a “small number

of votive objects found in the surrounding area” of the altar. The first phase of the

western sanctuary thus seems to have extended from roughly 550 BCE up through the

larger part of the fifth century, when it was remodeled.

By all accounts and purposes, the most striking religious development at Motya in

the sixth century was the construction and elaboration of the monumental “Kothon”

sacred area. Up until a few years ago, the running opinion on the large rectangular basin

of water at the south end of the island was that it was an artificial port or kothon that was

used by the Phoenicians for loading and unloading materials off long-distance carrier

ships. This interpretation remained basically unchallenged for some time, largely because

it fit well with broader notions of the Phoenicians as a seafaring society and Phoenician

settlements in the west Mediterranean as, first and foremost, ports. In 2002, however,

excavations initiated around the kothon revealed the remains of a large structure and huge

quantities of movable material remains. The unique character of some of these materials

suggested that the area may have had more of a religious function than anything else.

It wasn’t until archaeologists started to clear the walls of the kothon itself that

they were able to definitively show that the artificial port was, in its original form, never

meant to be connected to the adjoining Marsala lagoon; the original kothon was

completely sealed off from saltwater infiltration. What’s more is that they discovered a

freshwater spring near the middle of the kothon and a subterranean channel that

connected the spring to another freshwater pool just to the outside of it. Most intriguingly,

the channel then continued on into the interior of the large structure to the east of the

kothon, feeding a well located in building’s central court. Additional excavations in the

area then revealed an unbroken stratigraphic sequence between a semi-paved “piazza”

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745 Isserlin and du Plat Taylor 1974: 71.746 Based on similarities in the profile of the Doric capital to those from Temple F at Selinus (Coldstream 1962-63).

that lay immediately to the north and west of the building and the “eastern bench” of the

kothon.747 The kothon was not a true “kothon” at all, but rather a large freshwater pool,

that may have been the primary water source for the entire island, and that had explicit

physical and symbolic links to the building--which excavations revealed was clearly

religious in nature-- immediately beside it. Finally, the most recent excavations of the

area have revealed an extraordinary circular temenos wall that surrounded the building,

kothon, outlying piazza, and a large unexcavated open area and connected the whole

complex to the southern Gate used for the whole island.

What began as the follow-up to some georadar anomalies has revealed a massive

sacred complex that anchored the entire southern end of the island. It is now clear that the

first monumental phase of both the kothon and the temple building dates to the second

half of the sixth century BCE, although ongoing excavations have now revealed evidence

for an even earlier, eighth-century sacred building.748 The sixth-century building is

known as “Temple C1,” while the fifth-century phase has been dubbed “Temple C2.” The

temple itself was burnt to the ground in 397 BCE as part of the settlement-wide

destruction carried out by Dionysius. Afterwards, however, the area was converted into a

vast open-air sacred area (“Sanctuary C3”) and continued to fulfill religious functions up

until about 250 BCE.749

The fifth-century phase of the “Kothon temple” is certainly the most monumental

and because of this, excavations were largely halted at that level for preservation

purposes. Archaic activity (phase “Temple C1”) seems to have revolved around the

central court and cella of the later building. 750 The building materials and monumental

entry to the temple indicate its impressiveness.751 The entrance was flanked by two large

projecting pilasters in antis that supported Aeolic capitals of Cypriot type and probably a

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747 Nigro 2006a: 50; Ibid. 2007.748 Nigro 2007: 28; Nigro 2010.749 Discussions of chronology are detailed in Nigro 2004 and Nigro 2005. Nigro 2006: 44-45 also provides a useful summary of the area’s main building phases.750 The main body of sixth-century material consists of open forms, particularly of Ionic-style cups. Some Corinthian or Corinthianizing fragments of kotylai, kotyliskoi, and pyxis covers were also recovered (Nigro 2004).751 Nigro 2004; see Nigro 2007: 25 (fig. 4) for a reconstruction.

wooden architrave.752 Lorenzo Nigro describes the entrance as “one of the persistent

architectural features in the life of the sacred complex,” and the similarities between its

appearance and the stelai reliefs depicting a pilastered doorway with betyl inside is

uncanny.

The interior space of the temple was dominated by a large rectangular court and

by the main cella, which opened off to the north of the court. Another door off the court

led to a porch lined with squarish pilasters on the eastern side of the temple (i.e. the side

facing the kothon). In the fifth-century phase of the temple, there were a number of

different complex cultic installations, some of which had been part of Temple C1 as well.

The most significant of these was probably the sacred well, which was positioned directly

in front of the entrance. In the fifth century, other installations were put in along the same

axis, forming a sort of ritual line through which worshippers might have progressed.753 A

low podium, designed perhaps to hold a throne,was also put in on the eastern side of the

court. The santa sanctorum of the temple was a rectangular chamber that ran parallel to

the central court to the north and was accessed via a wide passage on the same alignment

with the monumental temple entrance. Carbonized material on the pavement of the

chamber suggested the presence of mobile furniture in the room, perhaps supports or

thrones. At the back of the room (i.e. the eastern end), a step and two pilasters separated

an adyton off of the main cella; Nigro believes that this room would have held the

simulacrum of the divinity.754 Finally, another large room opened to the west off of the

central court where there was another stele or betyl and another place for making

libations.

In a normal situation, it might be thought that the growing regularity in

Phoenician religious culture during the sixth century would subsequently mature during

the fifth and especially the fourth century BCE. Yet, this does not seem to be what

happens. Throughout the latter half of the sixth century, Carthage was increasingly more

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752 The capitals and other architectural elements were recovered from inside a large favissa in the sanctuary, having been deposited there after the temple was destroyed in 397 BCE (Nigro 2007: 25).753 Nigro 2005. These included three stelai that supported betyls or obelisks, two of which were attached to low benches that were used for either leaving votives or pouring libations.754 Nigro 2006a: 46.

assertive, especially in Sardinia. The literary sources claim that the Carthaginians led a

series of expeditions “against the island,” culminating in the destruction of several

Phoenician and indigenous settlements alike. Monte Sirai was attacked and sacked, the

tophet at Bithia went completely out of use and remained so for at least a century, and

Sulcis appears to have also suffered.755 Carthage is less “visible” in both the literary and

archaeological record for sixth-century Sicily, but the pottery from all sectors of Motya,

Panormus, and Solunto shows a significant increase in the number of Carthaginian

imports in the sixth century, suggesting that at least economic ties between the North

African powerhouse and the Sicilian cities had been strengthened.

500-400 BCE

Only four Phoenician cities built new sacred areas in the fifth century: Tharros,

Neapolis, Nora, and Motya. The first new sanctuary at Tharros was a monumental temple

built directly in the middle of the urban sector. What remains of the temple today is

largely its second reincarnation, the well-known “temple with Doric semi-columns” (also

commonly labeled the “monolithic temple”). While the eponymous architectural

embellishments are fourth-century additions, the main feature of the fifth-century phase

was also integrated into the later structure. This consisted of a large, irregularly shaped

sandstone rock, enclosed by a finely-made wall, with an elevated platform sloping from

northwest to southeast and dotted with holes.756 The holes in the rock are artificial and are

thought to have been used for either pouring libations or burning incense (or both).

Traces of a temenos wall are also visible on all four sides of the building, but excavation

reports do not specify whether the wall belongs with the fifth- or fourth-century phase.

Another sacred area was found to the south of this, which in the Roman period involved a

monumental staircase leading to a large temple podium there. Excavations showed that

the Roman structure incorporated in its favissae the structures of a Punic shrine and

291

755 Bartoloni et al. 1997: 71.756 Pesce 1961: 341.

reused building materials bearing two Punic votive inscriptions. For the favissae, none of

the material seemed to date earlier than the fifth century BCE.757

Probably at the beginning of the fifth century, a “Punic salutary sanctuary”

developed to the north of the newly-founded Neapolis. The evidence for the sanctuary

comes from a very rich deposit that contained material dating between the fifth and

second centuries BCE. The figurines, which make up the majority of the materials, were

handmade and for the most part represent worshippers suffering from maladies indicated

by where their hands are placed. Also present were anatomical votives, pinakes, votive

fruits, and a “horn of consecration,” all made of terracotta, and large quantities of Attic

figured and black glaze pottery.758

Nora diminished in significance during the fifth century BCE. The tophet was

abandoned, the necropolis stopped being used, and there are very few occupation levels

in the settlement. The Coltellazzo sanctuary saw some visitation, however, and by the end

of the fifth century, the site seems to have recovered, as a new sanctuary was built at the

highest point of the Sa Punta su’ Coloru promontory, to the south of the urban center.759

The sacred area consists of a large enclosed space inside of which there was a walled,

unroofed shrine, a number of small stone bases, cultic installations, and a well. The shrine

stood on an elevated platform that was decorated with an egyptianizing architrave and

oriented towards the north.760 Inside the shrine was another stone structure (2.1 x 1.6 m.),

which in a secondary phase was enclosed inside a small room that would have served as

the shrine’s penetrale. The area has traditionally been thought to have been dedicated to

Eshmun on the basis of second-century BCE ex-voto finds, several of which indicate that

the space was used for “incubation” rituals.761 The sanctuary may have also had a

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757 Barreca 1986: 286.758 Zucca 1987: 55, 151.759 On the difficulties of the fifth century at Nora, see Bondì 2003: 79-81. Dating of the Sa Punta su’ Coloru sanctuary has fluctuated between the late 6th c. up to the middle of the 2nd c. BCE, but the most recent work seems to support a late 5th c. BCE date (Oggiano 2005: 1035).760 The architrave was tapered towards the top and depicted 15 cobras and a solar disk flanked by a pair of wings in low relief (Chiera 1978: 47).761 Barreca 1986: 311-12; i.e. the ritual in which one falls asleep in the temple while waiting for a cure from the divinity, who appears as a snake.

“entrance to the sea” similar to the one in the Tas-Silg sanctuary on Malta, that could

suggest ties to the world of navigation, in addition to more salutifary functions.762

At Motya, most of the religious activity involved modifications to the older

sanctuaries. Temple C at the kothon underwent its first large reconstruction, probably in

tandem with a reorganization of the piazza that surrounded the temple.763 Temple C2 had

a truly monumental form, featuring a shallow porch with four tronco-pyramidal pilasters

and another complementary aisle on the eastern side. The area in front of the temple was

paved with finer stones and a stone structure, perhaps an altar, was added to its northeast

corner, just beside the temple proper. More cult installations joined the sixth-century

sacred well and original stele as well. The organization of the temple structure seems to

have been designed so that the worshipper could proceed through each of the building’s

seven spaces, with specific ritual assignments for each area. The pouring out of libations

and/or the use of lustral water seems to have been the most signficant ritual in place, as

nearly every room in the complex contained a particular area for either the dispensal of

liquids or the retrieval of water (from the well).

The heart of the complex continued to be the cella and court area, with three

pilaster or betyl-type stones, all aligned on the east-west axis of the cella, and each with

its own place for making libations, serving as dominant cultic centerpieces. A small

podium was also added to the northeast corner of the court, perhaps as a container for cult

materials.764 Many deposits of sea shells were left around both the well and the platform

in the middle of the court, and the excavation reports mention a substantial number of

metal items and fragments being present as well.765 Meanwhile, the cella, and the small

adyton attached to it in particular, continued to function as in the preceding period as the

innermost sacred area. A votive deposit made just inside the adyton seems to underline its

ritual significance during this period: it included many open vessels (particularly of

skyphoi), several of which functioned as containers for smaller votive materials, such as

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762 Bondì 2005: 582.763 Nigro (ed.) 2005: 55.764 Nigro (ed.) 2005: 60.765 At least 34 metal objects were individually catalogued, in addition to numerous bronze fragments and small pieces of arrows and nails.

metal objects, shell and mother of pearl fragments, stone weights, trapezoidally-worked

stones of polished marble and obsidian, and a whole set of miniature vessels as well. The

entire deposit was marked by a limestone cube and fragmented and intact tablewares

were spread around it.766 The final reports of the pottery from the kothon area have yet to

be published, but preliminary analyses indicate a higher quantity of mainland and

colonial Greek pottery than other parts of Motya.

Religious activity also continued to thrive elsewhere at Motya. Renovations

appear to have been made to the Cappiddazzu, during a phase that falls between the

Archaic temple and the monumental fourth-century three-roomed building. The

chronology is a bit unclear, largely because of the presence of gola egizia fragments in

the foundation of the fourth-century monument. Their presence means that the temple

was built either at the end of the fifth century or beginning of the fourth century, but there

are no clear signs of what the building may have looked like otherwise.767 The western

sanctuary just outside the North Gate was also updated and a new “eastern sanctuary”

was built on the other side of the road mirroring the older shrine. Very little has been

reported about this complex, other than the fact that the eastern shrine was a roughly

rectangular space walled in on three sides. The materials that were recorded, however,

indicate that some possible rituals might have involved votive deposits left in large

amphorae and the use of lamps and terracotta masks.768 Animal sacrifice is also a near

certainty, based on the presence of an open-air altar and a large pit in which a sheep and

its young were all buried inside.

Within the tophet, the fifth-century phase is one of the richest in its duration. In

many ways, the physical appearance of the sanctuary remained largely the same, although

some small shrines appear to have been added at some point in the late fifth or early

294

766 The miniature vessels included: a kotyliskos, 3 skyphoi, 2 lopadia, 3 intact or fragmented lekythoi, a pyxis cover, and three painted fragments. The other pottery included parts of at least two amphorae, three skyphoi, an oinochoe, and a plate.767 A similar thing can be seen in the foundation of one of the North Gate towers, a reconstruction that has been dated to the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century BCE. Vincenzo Tusa (2000: 1400) believed that the remodeling of the sanctuary could have coincided with the flourishing of Carthaginian power in Sicily, as evidenced in the destruction of Greek Selinus in 409, and Akragas in 406 BCE, but gola egizia cornices found in other parts of the Mediterranean are usually thought to have been a development of the early fourth century BCE.768 Isserlin and du Plat-Taylor 1974: 77-78.

fourth century (and then later dismantled).769 Urn deposits and stelai both increased, and

certain stelai featured engraved and/or painted inscriptions. There are also more imported

items, particularly of Ionic-style cups and olpai, for this period.770 Figurines continued to

be used, but new mask-styles were also integrated into the ritual assemblages.771 One of

the more notable features of this phase was the use of archaic stelai and other “votive

monuments” to raise the height of older walls and to build small platforms within the

tophet: many stelai were found in dumps around the tophet, while the urn deposits were

left in place, suggesting that stelai did not elicit the same degree of religious tribute. More

of the urns also contained burnt animal bones in addition to the human remains and there

seems to be fairly good evidence that animal sacrifice may have occassionally been

practiced as its own ritual in the tophet by this period.772

In comparison to the religious developments of the sixth century, those of the fifth

century are relatively meager and are largely exclusive to just a few sites in Sicily and

Sardinia. While the older sanctuaries were not necessarily abandoned, many of them

show a significant contraction in use. Even more remarkable are the differences between

the developments at Motya-- the only Sicilian city available to us-- and those at

Phoenician sites in Sardinia. In the end, the rather diverse trajectories of the Sicilian

colony and those in Sardinia complicate attempts to characterize the developments of the

fifth century in any generalizable way. Motya, on the one hand, continued to build,

renovate, and monumentalize older structures, adding both visibility and wealth to every

religious area that existed at the time. Phoenician cities in Sardinia, on the other hand, do

not show comparable growth or investment in religion, not even at Tharros, a city whose

citizens clearly had wealth available at the time, but who chose not to invest it-- or, at

least, not that much of it-- in either the construction or renovation of civic sanctuaries.

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769 As evident from the reuse of gola egizia cornices in the wall reconstructions of the late fourth century.770 For the fifth century, Ciasca (1964: 74-82) describes a particularly “gran quantità” of “tazze” as well as higher counts of miniature vessels and Greek pottery. 771 Cf. Ciasca 1968: 45; Ibid. 1969: 39-40.772 Indicated, perhaps, by an interersting deposit left in a natural rock cavity, about 50 cm. in diameter, that contained various pots and a great quantity of bovid bones (Ciasca 1969: 40).

Presumably, most of the non-urban sanctuaries that had just been built around 500

BCE were used during the fifth-century, but at most of the sites, the relevant material

remains are so sparse that it is difficult to discern what the scale of operations would have

been like. At Antas, a few of the amulets found in the later third-century depository date

back to the end of the fifth century, and the Greek-style sculpture is securely attributed to

c. 420 BCE. In addition, while the wealthy deposits of gold and detailed bronze

inscriptions seem to mostly date to the late fourth or third centuries, perhaps comparable

items were deposited in the fifth century and have simply not survived the ages. In short,

most of what we know about this phase is guesswork.

The general impression given by this analysis is that religious activity was

somewhat destabilized during the fifth century, particularly in Sardinia. More established

areas continued to be used, but probably less regularly. It also seems that it became more

dispersed: while urban sanctuaries experienced a downturn, the number of places with

isolated finds of religious or votive material rose slightly. Certain burial assemblages also

started to integrate particular forms of votive material. At Tharros, for example, figurines

of a standing goddess with a disk at her chest (c. 500-475 BCE) and a flute player, female

masks, incense burners, and masks were all recovered from the necropolis. Similar finds

came the Tuvixeddu necropolis at Karalis and even from smaller Phoenician-Punic

necropoleis as well, such as at Santu Teru-Monte Luna or Siamanna-Vicolo Serra (OR)

where two statuettes probably depicting divinities were found, along with large quantities

of lamps and unguent vessels.773

Discussion

For the eighth through the second half of the seventh century, most of the material

correlates for religious activity that do exist issue from tophets. Only in the sixth century

are there signs of a more general trend towards building sanctuaries unrelated to the

tophet. Both types of sanctuaries made use of natural features in the landscape. Large,

natural rocks formed the centerpiece of cult ritual and later religious structures at Motya,

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773 Bondì 1987: 184-85; Nieddu and Zucca 1991: 57.

Sulcis, Tharros, Nora, and Bithia and “high places” seem preferred. Indigenous

occupation layers lay underneath nearly every sanctuary, a particularly noticeable pattern

amongst the tophets. While one could argue that this was perhaps due to the natural

strategic value of certain sanctuary sites (certainly Sulcis, Monte Sirai, Tharros, and some

of the areas at Motya conform to this explanation), there also seems to be a particularly

strong engagement with the physical remains of these earlier settlements. This trend may

be said to have culminated in the fourth century, particularly for Sardinia, with the re-use

or reclamation of nuragic well sanctuaries and their conversion of these sites into cult

sites devoted to Demeter: there are at least 15 documented cases of this in the area

between Cagliari and Oristano alone.774

Phoenician sanctuaries were also very much “set apart” from the rest of their

settlements. For many cities, it was the physical location of the sanctuaries, either on

high places or on city peripheries that primarily demarcated the sanctuary from its

surroundings. Only at Motya in the earlier periods and Tharros in the later fifth century

when these cities built inside the city did the use of temene really become an essential

part of the sanctuary complex. The coincidence between the location of sanctuaries and

city gates is particularly notable for Phoenician settlements.775 Some scholars have

observed this pattern for sanctuaries in the Near East, where “city-gate shrines” at

Megiddo, Ebla, and Tell Far’ah have been imagined as an integral part of the

materialization of the “cosmic city,” an ideal-type seen in Biblical literature and Ugaritic

texts that combined urban planning with the cosmic principle of the world being divided

into four quarters.776 Thus, in addition to sanctuaries being in places that reinforced their

liminality and the transition from non-urban to urban space, they might also communicate

notions of civic order, hierarchy, and belongingness as well.

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774 The exact identity of the practitioners is still debated (are they Punic or “punicized” Sards?), but the development is significant either way. Evidence for Demeter cult has been documented at Sa Mitza; Cuccuru Nuraxi of Settimo San Pietro; Sant’Antine; Genn ‘e Gruxi; Narbolia; Othoca; Santa Cristina at Paulilatino; Nuraghe Lugherras near Paulilatino; Fenugheda (OR); Santa Margherita di Pula (CA); Riola Sardo (OR); Genna Maria (CA); and Narcao (CA).775 Isserlin and du Plat-Taylor (1974: 96) even argue that the concentration of sanctuaries around the north gate was designed to align directly with not only the mainland but with the sanctuary at Eryx as well.776 2 Kings 23.8; Wright 1985: 164, 250.

Given these qualities, I think it is fair to say that most Phoenician sanctuaries

were generally in publicly conspicuous areas. This geographical tendency, however, did

not automatically translate into the “public display of wealth,” either in the monuments

themselves or in their material assemblages, particularly during the earlier periods. In

addition, the structural arrangement of the sanctuaries makes it unclear as to how much

“public display” was really going on. The temene, for example, most commonly featured

additional open-air “shrines” with one to three rooms as the central focus of the

sanctuary. In some cases, such as with the Coltellazzo sanctuary, the open-air feature was

more a large altar than a “shrine.” Once inside the temene, attention would have been

directed towards the shrine or altar, a situation that was sometimes amplified by the

additional presence of wells and betyls. Additional “attention-focusing devices” such as

mounted betyls and wells sometimes appeared inside the shrine, but an elevated platform

against one of the interior walls was nearly always present. It seems that in at least some

cases, the elevated platform combined many different “sacred” elements into one major

ritual feature: it was often a large rock with unique features that served as an altar or as a

base for a betyl or other cult idol. The fact that this feature was enclosed inside the

innermost room of a shrine, however, raises the question of who, in fact, would have had

access to this central ritual element. The average size of the structures-- ca. 13 meters in

length (although the building at Porto Pino/Porto Botte measured up to 25 meters)--

would have made it difficult for any large amount of people to gather there and the tiny

area of the penetralae would have only allowed for individuals. Thus, whether or not any

of these features were available for “public” view is questionable.

The repetitive plans and features of these sanctuaries seems to indicate that by the

late sixth century, a somewhat specialized architectural form and style had developed for

designating and building religious spaces in Phoenician-Punic communities. The majority

of the sanctuaries conform in some way to to the ma’abed elevated shrine plan that was

popular in the east Mediterranean, and almost all of them follow the model of orientating

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their corners on cardinal points.777 All also made use of fairly large, elevated terraces as

their temene spaces.

From an economic standpoint, the Phoenician sanctuaries also do not seem to

privilege the investment of wealth in most of the sanctuaries. Architectural decoration

was almost non-existent and when it did appear, it was a rather late development with the

sudden use of gola egizia cornices almost everywhere. Several exceptions must be made,

however. In regards to monumentality, sixth-century Motya defies the pattern of

generally low investment put towards public religious monuments. The city expended

massive energy importing stone and building up temples in nearly all of its sectors, and

most notably in the Kothon sanctuary. The patterns at Motya strongly suggest that it was

affected by the same sixth-century monumentalization process that can be observed at

Selinus, Himera, and Akragas, as well as elsewhere in the Mediterranean. However, this

process largely seems to have bypassed Sardinian Phoenician settlements, which when

they built at all tended to keep shrines relatively small and minimally decorated.

Another exception must be made for the material assemblages of some sacred

areas. Up to the fifth century BCE, there is little evidence of offerings being made in

Phoenician sanctuaries outside of tophets. Six Sardinian sites have evidence for sixth-

century votives, but at least three of these come from disturbed contexts. The other three

sites produced only a few offerings. In the tophets, however, offerings were more

frequent (particularly after 550 BCE), and they show a notable degree of wealth. The

items from Sulcis, for instance, were made out of gold, silver, bronze, lead, faience,

stone, ivory, bone, and terracotta. Votives from non-tophet sanctuaries (mostly deposited

later), in contrast, rarely include items of high intrinsic value. Sea shells and miniature

terracotta vessels were predominant in the fifth-century Temple C2 votive assemblage,

and only four metal offerings were itemized: an iron nail, bronze nail, a smaller iron nail,

and a lead hairpin. Such differences in dedicatory practice seem to indicate that by the

fifth century, a new classification system existed for Phoenician sanctuaries: while

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777 The Phoenician enclosed altars and “shrine” structures have striking parallels with ma’abed shrines--structures that used an elevated shrine as the focal point in monumental articulations of sacred space-- in the eastern Mediterreanen. For example, the shrines at Amrit (dated, in its monumental form, to the 5th-4th c) and ‘Ain el-Hayat (Bondì 2005: 581; Oggiano 2005: 1034-35).

Phoenician religion engaged in the “public display of wealth,” it did so in circumscribed

contexts, almost all of which were tophets.

Symbolic features are common in Phoenician sanctuaries, particularly in the

tophets and most often through the form of stelai. Like the more structural attention-

focusing device of the betyl, stelai generally designated sacred space. But, they could also

serve as literal embodiments of a deity, particularly especially given their use of certain

iconographic forms. The stele itself was often carved to represent a naiskos or shrine, and

from the fragmentary pieces of evidence we have of sacred architectural decoration (the

kothon sanctuary has been incredibly useful in this regard) the stelai seem to depict--

formulaically, but accurately-- actual religious structures.778 In most cases, the stelai

show a relief-sculpted figure standing in the doorframe of the “shrine.” These figures

vary through both time and space, but they all draw on a fairly widespread Phoenician

koinê of sacred iconographic representation, particularly as it pertains to more

supernatural concepts of divinity. Common forms include the betyl, the “bottle-idol,” the

solar disk, the “sign of Tanit,” the cobra, an animal, clothed female and male figures,

some of which hold objects at their chest, such as a bell or an ankh symbol.779 Other

materials such as the “sardonic” masks and protomes of female divinities may have both

iconographic and more ritualistic significance as well.

Conclusions

Indigenous responses to Phoenician religion

In Chapter 1, I stated that there were two main reasons for why a close study of

Phoenician colonial religious developments was a pressing issue for historians and

archaeologists of the western Mediterranean. My first reason was studies of the long-term

impact of colonialism in the west Mediterranean have a responsibility to consider the

active roles of all groups involved. The study of indigenous sites is now beginning to

have its due, but in many ways the Phoenicians remain on the sidelines of scholarship,

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778 We might see these stelai thus in the same way that others have seen Greek temple-models.779 The bell-shaped object has been thought to have been used in various rituals, either by worshippers or by priestly figures, and has other iconographic parallels, most notably a pilaster and a stone base that came from Tharros and depict sacred dancing.

playing a largely subsidiary role to the Greeks and to the issue of the Hellenization

narrative, particularly in English-language analyses. Part of the blame for this state of

things can be assigned to the field of Phoenician-Punic studies itself, which even just ten

years ago was still largely consigned to specialists and rarely entered into the lingua

franca of Classical scholarship. But, a large chunk of responsibility also falls on the

shoulders of Classicists who assumed that the Phoenicians made no impact mainly

because they were not Greeks.

That the role of the Phoenicians is an inextricable part of the story of how the

western and classical Mediterranean developed is increasingly being acknowledged by

both sectors of scholarship. One way of telling that story is to focus on aspects of

religious development, contextualizing the patterns in religious development among the

variable historical situations that different regions experienced during the Archaic period.

Motya’s trajectory of religious development, for example, diverged significantly from

that of Phoenician settlements in Sardinia, only being matched (somewhat) by the later

growth at Tharros in the late Classical period. The religious material culture from Motya

also explicitly used certain representational forms such as the female terracotta figurines

and Doric architecture that originally developed in Greek sanctuary contexts. This

integration is at least partially attributible to the contact that Motyan colonists must have

had with Greek and indigenous neighbors, but may also be attributible to differences in

the socio-political climates of each island.

My second reason for conducting a close study of Phoenician religious

developments is more related to the logic of my argument. Measuring indigenous

responses to “colonial” religion, be it Greek or Phoenician, is largely a descriptive

process that uses certain criteria-- the material correlates-- to make general comparisons

between different sets of data. However, to explain why indigenous societies seem to

respond the way they do is an entirely different problem, one that inherently involves a

causal argument. In Chapter 1, I suggested three hypothetical explanations to this

question that seemed particularly relevant. The first, that the “Hellenization” of the west

Mediterranean was not neccessarily an indigenous response but was instead a process of

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cultural diffusionism, did not hold up because, as we saw in Chapter 4, religious

developments in Sardinia a) start much earlier than elsewhere in west Mediterranean and

b) only resemble the developments in Sicily from a very abstract comparative level. In

addition, parallel religious developments between nuragic and Phoenician communities

are remarkably few. Concrete evidence for a type of “diffused” pattern of religious

material culture only appears in the very late fourth and third centuries BCE, when it

seems that both Phoenician and Sard communities integrated elements of Demeter and/or

fertility cult, many of which have Greek precedents.

The second hypothesis, that “positive responses” among indigenous populations

were dependent on the density of colonial population may carry some weight to it, but

remains problematic. Chapter 7 discusses the argument more fully, but it can be noted

now that it would be more likely true for periods when that density was particularly high.

The expansion of rural Punic settlement in Sardinia during the fourth century BCE would

seem to meet these conditions and, to some degree, certain changes in local religious

worship are evident, such as in the growth of Demeter cult.

The third hypothesis stipulated that indigenous responses were the result of a

process of selective integration of the material culture and practices of colonial groups. In

the discussion of indigenous Sicilian sites in Chapter 3, I argued that this hypothesis

could be falsified if the types of changes could be shown to be random and if the

integration of “Greek” and “Phoenician” religious material culture and practices were

roughly equivalent. Some of the material correlates used to identify religious practice are

so general (i.e. the attraction to natural places, the general designation of sacred space)

that it would be erroneous to attribute them completely to external influence in the first

place, much less to one colonial influence over another.

Other correlates, however, are less general and with these, more direct

comparisons of the indigenous, Phoenician, and Greek material can be useful for

evaluating broader questions about indigenous responses to Phoenician material culture

and religious practice (or the lack thereof) and, correlatively, how such responses

compare to the ways in which indigenous communities reacted and interacted with Greek

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religious material culture and practices. As is the case with the Greek and Sicilian

communities in the early Archaic period, most of the evidence for religious activity in the

early Phoenician colonies pertains to open-air cult, with the presence of ash, burnt and

unburnt animal bones, and pottery documented at nearly every site. The preference for

“high places” is unmistakeable with Phoenician religious areas, but is also well-attested

at Greek and indigenous Sicilian settlments. Things generally diverge, however, from

there. In terms of architecture and permanent structural features, stone elements were

more common to the early Phoenician than early Greek colonial cult contexts, even if the

features were generally quite small.

That being so, then it might be thought that when indigenous communities in

Sicily started to build permanent religious structures for the first time or when indigenous

Sardinians perhaps were coming into contact with their new neighbors, they would draw

on or borrow from these Phoenician prototypes. However, this was not the case. Around

600 BCE, Greek and indigenous sites in Sicily started to build stone structures on their

acropoleis and in other visibly significant areas. Between 570 and 500 BCE, temple-

building exploded in Sicily, particularly at Selinus and Akragas: by 500, Selinus had built

13 temples, Akragas 18, and Himera 6. The Greek colonies outstripped their Phoenician

counterparts in terms of religious buildings: with the exception of Motya where there

were four sanctuaries present by 500 BCE, the number of Phoenician sanctuaries

averaged roughly 1.75 sanctuaries per site. In contrast, by 500 BCE several Sicilian

native sites had also built quite large sacred complexes, some of which, like the acropolis

temple at Monte Saraceno, the Contrada Mango sanctuary at Segesta, the “temple to

Aphrodite” at Monte Iato, or the complex at Polizzello, cost the equivalent of temples in

the Greek colonies.

Under this umbrella of general building activity were subsidiary developments,

particularly in the development of variant, highly standardized styles of colonial Greek

and Phoenician religious architecture. Greek shrines between 625 and 580/70 BCE were

generally modest (although at Selinus, at least one may have been significantly grander)

and almost all were elongated, internally-divided rectangular buildings, oriented

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longitudinally and featuring various forms of sculpted terracotta and stone architectural

decoration. As this chapter has shown, Phoenician religious areas definitely did not look

like this; instead, they consisted primarily of squarish, open-air “enclosures” and large

altars on elevated platforms that were almost always oriented with the corners facing

cardinal directions and entered through the horizontal axis.

In Sardinia, there are no obvious signs of indigenous communities taking forms of

Phoenician religious architecture and “hybridizing” them with the established ritual forms

of well-sanctuaries or nuragic cult up until the mid-fourth century BCE.780 Additionally,

in Sicily, there is no clear-cut evidence as of yet that Sicilian communities integrated

forms of religious architecture, material culture, or practice that seem distinctly

“Phoenician” in nature. No indigenous site started to practice anything that looks like

tophet ritual and Phoenician iconography remained largely relegated to Phoenician sites.

This is the case even though in many ways Phoenician religious material culture seems

much more coherent and well-articulated than what was contemporarily in place among

Greek communities.

The overall distinctive quality of Phoenician religious culture is also evident in

the particular aspects of more “generic” ritual practices and material assemblages. In

Sicily, for example, drinking wares were present to some degree at all of the sites. But,

the overall quantity and the percentage of the sanctuary assemblage that they constitute

was far greater and earlier at both indigenous Sicilian and Greek sites than at Phoenician

ones. Wine wares made up, on average, 69% of the ceramic assemblages from Greek

sites, while at indigenous Sicilian sites, they ranged between 75 to 90% of the

assemblage. In contrast, the highest percentage of wine wares documented at any

Phoenician sacred area was at the Cappiddazzu sanctuary, where cups and amphorae

made up less than 50% of the sixth-century assemblage, far less than what was

documented at the Greek and indigenous Sicilian settlements.

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780 Here, I exclude forms of material culture like the betyl, which was clearly an important Phoenician religious symbol, but that for indigenous Sardinian communities was a symbol that had roots in the island’s Neolithic past.

Variance can also be seen at the level of sacrificial preferences and food

consumption. Few site reports specify anything about the faunal remains, but among

those that do are some distinctive patterns. Studies of Greek, indigenous Sicilian, and

indigenous Sardinian cult areas note the presence of animal bones much oftener than

those for Phoenician sites. The animal bones recorded for Phoenician sacred contexts are

usually described as being “small” or belonging to “small animals,” with birds being the

animals most often itemized among the remains; specifically “meat” bones are never

mentioned. Also distinctive among the Phoenician faunal assemblages is the evidence for

“holocausts” of animals in particular. At Tharros, where the best studies of the animal

assemblages have been carried out, 27% of the urn deposits included an animal

“holocaust,” defined as essentially the complete burning of the entire animal body; the

animal victim was almost always an immature ovicaprid.781 Holocausts are also recorded

for the deposits of animal remains recovered from Bithia, Nora, Sulcis, and for the

fourth-third century “Sanctuary C3” phase of the Motyan kothon sanctuary; future studies

will likely confirm whether this form of sacrificial ritual also took place in the earlier

periods in the latter area.

In many ways, the faunal evidence suggests that sacrifice, while practiced in

Phoenician contexts, was carried out under somewhat different pretexts. Few of the

remains can be said to support claims that the Phoenicians were engaging in elaborate

ritual meals after the sacrificial act. In fact, only the bones from the Cappiddazzu

sanctuary appear to have been the residue of sacrificial meals, based on the more frequent

presence of bovine and mature ovicaprid bones. Interestingly enough, Bondì has argued

that the fact that sacrificial remains were recovered in association with both indigenous

and Phoenician pottery is “an evident sign of the joint use of the same cult place, in

which each of the two components could recognize their divinity.”782 If so, this might

help explain why the Cappiddazzu animal remains are actually quite different from other

Phoenician sacred faunal assemblages of the time.

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781 Fedele 1979; Fedele and Foster 1988.782 Bondì 2005: 21.

As for votive offerings, Phoenician movable items seem to have made less inroads

into either indigenous Sicilian or Sardinian sites than coeval Greek products. This seems

somewhat surprising given that luxury goods, usually always in demand, were clearly

better attested (at least for the earlier colonial period) at Phoenician communities than

Greek. Small ornaments, perfume vessels, stelai, shells, and probably perishable

materials were the most commonly dedicated items among Phoenician sacred contexts. In

Iron Age and Archaic Sardinia, Phoenician luxury goods were left as votives by nuragic

Sards in the indigenous sanctuaries for sure, but they seem to be part of a broader ritual

demand in nuragic religion for prestige items more generally.783 In fact, Monte Prama,

where a stele with a sign of Tanit was found, has been described as the “one--signficantly

late-- case where foreign influences can be discerned to have contributed” to both

religious culture and to the more general process in which lower ranking nuragic groups

succeeded in gaining access to exchange relationships with Phoenician settlements.784

Phoenician imports are almost entirely absent from indigenous Sicilian votive

assemblages for the entire span of the study period, even when historical periods speak of

regular trading and political alliances between the western Elymians and the Phoenician

colonies.785 This lack of Phoenician material culture among the indigenous Sicilian

sacred assemblages contrasts sharply with the frequency of Greek products and local ly-

produced Greek imitations; particularly well-documented among the votive materials are

the small, mass-produced terracotta statuettes of various female figures or divinities,

Siceliot protomes and animal figurines, and Greek or Greek-style drinking cups.

In many ways, the evidence does speak to a type of preferential or selective

integration of certain forms of Greek religious culture and a neglect of Phoenician forms.

Older “Hellenization” models would certainly chalk this up to some inherently “better”

quality of the Greek material if they thought about it at all, but in most cases they

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783 Lo Schiavo 1990. Sant’Anastasia produced a substantial quantity of imports (a Villanovan pin, 3 Orientalizing bronze bowls), for example, while Etruscan bronze vases and a Phoenician-Cypriot torch were part of the meeting-hut assemblage at Santa Vittoria and a Cypriot-style tripod with geometric decorations was left in the Pirosu sanctuary (Ugas and Usai 1987).784 Van Dommelen 1998: 109; see also Acquaro et al. 1982: 39.785 Cf. Anello 1997.

probably would not think to ask why this might be the case at all. To start to answer

“why,” then, a broader perspective on Phoenician religious organization is necessary.

The socio-political context of Phoenician colonial religion

In “Religion as a cultural system,” Clifford Geertz made the argument that the

true importance of religion lay “in its capacity to serve...as a source of general, yet

distinctive, conceptions of the world, the self, and the relations between them, on the one

hand—its model of aspect—and of rooted, no less distinctive “mental” dispositions—its

model for aspect—on the other.”786 Cultural-symbolic approaches to religion more

generally argue that religion provides glosses for the “profane” world of social relations

and psychological events, all the while helping shape those same things. Too often in

interepretations of religion, however, the cultural “meaning” of religious symbols and

practices are divorced from their social context and are left “hovering above social

reality.” Talal Asad has contended that,

social disciplines are intrinsic to the field in which religious representations acquire their force and their truthfulness. From this it does not follow that the meanings of religious practices and utterances are to be sought in social phenomena, but only that their possibility and their authoritative status are to be explained as products of historically distinctive disciplines and forces. (Italics orig.)787

Thus, for archaeologists interpreting “symbols” or material correlates of religion, it is

necessary to situate the material evidence within its complex symbolic system without

losing contact with hard realities and without overlooking the authoritative discourses

within which they are constructed.

Studies of ancient Phoenician religion have more often than not remained

unaffected by broader anthropological studies of religion, however. Most of the attention

to Phoenician religious material has been on the identity of Phoenician divinities, their

relatioship to myths known from Ras Shamra and other (mostly Ugaritic) texts, and the

Biblical questions posed by the Old Testament’s description of relations between the

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786 Geertz 1973: 123. 787 Asad 1983: 251.

“strange gods” of Canaan and Israelite religion.788 Even recent scholarship continues to

see the major obstacle in studies of Phoenician religion to be determining the pantheon of

gods rather than on issues concerning the worshippers.789 In some ways, studies of

Phoenician religious material culture have been similarly beleaguered, though more from

the weight of iconographic details and questions of Egyptian, Syrian, and Israelite artistic

influence.

One significant exception to this general pattern has been the recent attention

towards tophets. The tophet has been described as constituting the “il santuario civico par

excellence” of Phoenician culture and as an “eminently public space, where the

Phoenician inhabitants of an entire region celebrated the symbolic constitution and

reproduction of their community.”790 Maria Eugenia Aubet argues that the organization

of tophets was

conditioned by the category of the colony and its territory. In the west, the tophet arose as soon as signs appeared of a qualitative and quantitative change in the socio-political structures of the Phoenician colonial enclave. In Carthage, for example, it only starts to function around 700 BC, in the centres in Sardinia even earlier. The tophet emerges at the same time as other structures and institutions: temples, fortifications and extensive necropolises. In other words, it only appears when a population increase and those features peculiar to an urban colony are recorded.791

Consequently, it has been inferred that colonial cities without tophets remained

politically, economically, and socially tied to their settling cities.792

The question of who worshipped in and had access to the tophets is one that Aubet

raises, though only obliquely. Using the votive formula “by decree of the people of

Carthage” which appears in “several” votive inscriptions from the tophet at Carthage,

Aubet argues that tophet precincts appear to be identified with the concept of citizenship

and were areas that involved “a clear intervention of the public authorities.”793 She then

goes on to say, however, that tophet ritual was accessible to only one category of citizen.

The specifics of who among the Phoenicians would have constituted this category,

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788 Cf. Oden 1976: 36.789 See, for example, Clifford 1990: 55.790 Oggiano 2005: 1038; Van Dommelen 1998: 83; see also Bondì 1979: 141-45.791 Aubet 2001: 254.792 Ibid.: 215-17.793 Ibid.: 217.

however, has been left undiscussed, besides the note that inclusion in the category

involved having full “citizens’ rights.”794

The question of how “public” tophets in reality were and who participated in their

rituals is one that speaks to wider-encompassing questions about the role of religion in

Phoenician society, both for the eastern Mediterranean and for the western colonies.

Outside of Sicily and Sardinia, inscriptions affirm that professional priests administered

the affairs of most urban sanctuaries; in the eastern Phoenician cities, only professional

clergy and royal family carried out sacrifices and major festivals.795 The significant

professionalization of religious practice is also seen in some of the few surviving

sacrificial tariffs from Carthage. These record dedications to Tanit and prescribe rites for

how the animal should be killed, given to the gods, and distributed: the head is cut off,

the blood drained and the head put on the altar. While the body burns, the official says a

prayer and burns incense. After the fat and entrails have been consumed (the gods’ share),

the flesh is cut up and divided between the sacrificer and the offerant. Finally, the ashes

are buried and a dedicatory stele erected.796 Here, the emphasis on sacrifice as a ritual

performed largely between an individual and a priest and the lack of feasting that

accompanied the dedication are both notable and contrast significantly with contemporary

Greek sacrificial behavior. The architectural design of Phoenician shrines and altars may

underline this stress on “individual” sacrifices even futher: in cases where Phoenician

sacred areas included both a built “shrine” and an altar, the altar was usually located

inside the structure, in its innermost room, sometimes in tandem with a betyl(s). As

discussed earlier in this chapter, even if the allowance was made for regular worshippers

to enter the penetrale of Phoenician religious buildings, the entire space would have held,

in most cases, a maximum of two people and the enclosure walls would have shut off any

sight of the sacrificial act from other religious participants.

The epigraphic material from Sicily and Sardinia also stresses personal as

opposed to group or “civic” worship, particularly for tophet rituals. Inscribed stelai from

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794 Ibid.: 256.795 See also the inscription from the Temple of Astarte at Kition (cited in Markoe 2000: 120) which lists a series of positions, including scribes, singers, butchers, bakers, barbers, water bearers, servants, a “water master” and a “sacrificer.”796 Lipinski (ed.) 1992.

Sicily and Sardinia exclusively record the dedications of individuals, most of whom are

named and accompanied by at least two generations of patronymics, like for example this

inscription dating to 550-500 BCE: “To Lord Baal/ Baalay dedicated [this], the son of

Baalyaton, son of Abdmi(l)k.”797 Some stelai also include the dedicant’s occupation (e.g.

Motya S-82) and others list a genealogical lineage going back up to four generations (e.g.

Motya S-103 and S-174, and the Archaic bronze plaque from Antas). Roughly 40 of the

1185 stelai from Motya have inscriptions, the use of written dedications and their focus

on qualities used to define social status is intriguing. The stress on status and social

markers can also be inferred from other parts of tophet material record. The use of stelai,

much less inscribed stelai with male descent lines included, was usually limited to a small

percentage of the tophet deposits. Restructuring of the tophets usually makes it

impossible to directly link stelai to individual deposits, but it seems clear that only a

portion of urn deposits had them (at Tharros there were, for example, 200 stelai to

“1000s” of pots). Other variables include the association of animal sacrifices with the

burnt human remains and the offering of other objects, usually ornaments or metal

items.798 At Tharros, where full faunal reports have been made, there is a strong

correlation in the occurence of these two latter variables and at Nora, the different

“status” of the urn deposits is especially prominent.799 Vivanet described a small space

with urns placed right next to each other and a significant ratio of 220 urns to 158

stelai.800 At various points, the urns seemed to form groups, gathered together under the

same cippus.801 Seven of the urns contained “a rather special funerary assemblage,” one

of which held the bones and skull fragments of a bovine, another that held two burnt

sheep, and then four with silver and bronze tripods. Significantly, the animal remains

inside the urns appear to be holocausts, indicating that no meat would have been

consumed after the ritual took place.

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797 Garbini 1967: 74.798 Bernardini et al. (1988) note that tophet assemblages were relatively modest when compared with the wealthy funerary deposits uncovered in the necropolis.799 Fedele 1979; Ibid. 1983: 639-40; Fedele and Foster 1988.800 It is unclear from Vivanet’s reports what the date is for these urns, but Barreca (1986: 311) suggests that they dated primarily to the 3rd c. BCE, instead of the Archaic period. 801 Vivanet 1891: 300.

Within sanctuaries, then, individual deposits could vary rather significantly. Other

studies of votive or dedicatory behavior tend to seize on distinctions like the ones I

described above, using the material evidence to argue for the existence of different social

categories in the sanctuary context. This has not happened with tophets, largely because

the sanctuary appears at the same time as other “urban” colonial institutions, thus

suggesting that it was a civic sanctuary. This may be true in the sense that all “citizens”

had access to the sanctuary, but the material suggests that citizenship in the Phoenician

colonies was perhaps more circumscribed than in other contemporary societies.802 There

is good reason then, I think, to believe that those with full “citizen rights” in fact came

from the more upper classes of the colony. In this vein, Glenn Markoe’s summary of

evidence for antecedents of mlk-sacrifice in the Phoenician East notes that literary uses of

the word generally imply that it was a practice that appears almost exclusive to

patriarchs, chiefs, and kings, and linked to affairs of state, particularly those having to do

with war or other dire circumstances. In these cases, ritual burning is supposed to appease

the wrath of Yahweh or Baal, but in no case does it become a widespread or official part

of worship.

Thus, the main counterparts that we have in the literary record allude to tophet

ritual being exclusive to the elite population. At the same time, the form these deposits

took also indicates that any “display” of status implied by participation in the tophet ritual

would have been rather limited, at least in the period after the ritual had concluded. This

leads me to believe that most tophet depositions were actually made by individuals or

families and did not involve, for the most part, more “civic” worship.803 As I will argue

in the next and final chapter, this has significant implications for how we understand

indigenous responses to Greek and Phoenician colonial religion.

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802 At Carthage, as was said above, there are of course some examples of dedications by “the people,” but more clarification is needed for determining what social categories “the people” really included.803 Oggiano 2005: 1038.

Chapter 7

Conclusions

The transformations in religion that can be observed among indigenous

communities in Sicily and Sardinia were some of the most important material expressions

of widespread changes in socio-political organization spurred by the arrival of Greek and

Phoenician colonists in the west Mediterranean. In this chapter, I argue that these

tranformations were manifested as patterns of local responses to the material culture and

practices associated with colonial religion. Certain religious and other cultural

developments are paralleled by similar changes in southern Italy and Etruria and, slightly

later, in southern France and Spain, suggesting that from a very broad perspective, Sicily

and Sardinia were involved in a widescale process of change that spanned the western

Mediterranean and transpired between the Iron Age and early Roman Republic. The very

different responses of these two regions, however, means that we cannot simplify this

process down to something like cultural diffusion; we must thus look for other

explanations.

The previous chapters have traced the changes in religious material culture and

practice within four very broad “groups” of the west Mediterranean: native Sicilians,

native Sards, Greeks, and Phoenicians. They also explored some of the parallel and

divergent patterns of religious development across the groups and complicated the

standard interpretive claims of both Hellenization- and postcolonial-style approaches to

the material. In this chapter, I shift the focus of my study somewhat in order to look more

closely at the relationship between religious change and the socio-political development

of communities affected by colonial Greek and Phoenician settlement. I will propose that

this relationship is best analyzed by examining how effectively different types of

religious worship and organization met the needs of their respective communities and

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provided tangible ways of adjusting to the new social and political demands posed by

“colonialism.”804

This proposition hinges on understanding how religion functions in and articulates

the different relationships that exist within and between communities. That there is an

indelible dynamic between religion and social group formation is, of course, a well-

established concept in the social sciences. The nineteenth-century scholar William

Robertson Smith, for example, made the case that religion “did not exist for the saving of

souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this

end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to

which he belonged.”805 Durkheim later formalized the relationship when he strove

to understand the real and positive benefits bestowed by religion on human beings. He saw those benefits in the way that religion works to establish, unify, and sustain human society and to thwart egoistic tendencies that harm human beings in their relations to others. In dismissing the notion of a religious response to a transcendent, divine object and concentrating his attention on the actual workings of religion in human society, Durkheim’s understanding of relgion was sociological, scientific, and horizontal.806

For non-literate contexts like that of the ancient west Mediterranean, accuracy in

the correspondence between religious change and more structural issues of social

relationships and political development largely depends on how much one believes that

material culture in religious practice was, and remains, a non-verbal means of

communicating ritual and social ideology and religious concepts. Morris has reasoned

that in using material culture,

we can perhaps read away the games people played to reach an authentic understanding of non-discursive realities, effectively reducing material culture to a passive reflection of economics, politics, or other forces; but before we can begin to do so, we must recognize that our data always come to us already implicated in competing attempts to fashion images of the world.807

Comprehending the significance of religious developments among indigenous

communities in the west Mediterranean therefore involves weaving their temporal and

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804 Here, I understand “colonialism” in only the broadest of terms; that is, the historical situation created by the permanent settlement of groups of people of different cultural or ethnic backgrounds in a region that usually includes “natives,” whom I understand as the pre-existing residents of an area, most of whom are literally “born-in” the setting of which they are a part.805 Robertson Smith 1901: 29.806 Idinopolos and Wilson 2002: x.807 Morris 1998: 68.

regional specifics together with a longer-term perspective and measuring both against the

socio-political dynamics of the times.

The transformation of religion in Sicily and Sardinia between 700 and 450 BCE

will always need to be seen against the more harshly political background historical

developments, such as the establishment of Greek tyrants at Selinus and Akragas and the

ascending power of Carthage from the sixth century BCE on. That religion played a

fundamental role in these larger waves of change is one of the arguments this final

chapter tries to make. The fifth century witnessed this interaction most directly, and for

this reason, this chapter pays closer attention to Classical-period developments than the

previous chapters. The study closes just before the wave of Carthaginian destructions

swept through central and western Sicily near the end of the fifth century BCE. Although

important things happened after 406 BCE, this date is a convenient boundary since I

believe it marks the moment before the west Mediterranan became more tied to affairs

between Carthage and Rome and less so to either Greece or the Hellenistic kingdoms.

The variable “responses” to colonial religion in Sicily and Sardinia, 700-500 BCE

Iron Age Sicily and Sardinia were vastly different in terms of ritual organization

and political makeup. In Sicily, material correlates for Iron Age religious activity are

quantitatively low and are fragmentary throughout sites. A certain amount of odd

behavior focused around graves, ranging from a particular dedicatory pattern (noted

especially among the sites in the southeastern part of the study area, near Gela) to rites of

sacrifice, to the repeated visitation of certain tombs and subsequent grave offerings after

the primary burial had taken place. At a few sites, these activities concentrated into

narrowly-defined contexts as well, suggesting that certain tombs became areas of

religious concentration for (limited) groups of people. The presence of anomalous

materials in some settlement contexts may indicate that rituals featured in domestic

activities as well, but generally less than in funerary contexts. Overall, the evidence is

dispersed, suggesting a lack of centralized ritual or religious focus.

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Robert Leighton has suggested that Iron Age communities in Sicily seem less

hierarchical than their predecessors and that both the mortuary and settlement evidence

suggests “a somewhat devolved arrangement of large village-based groupings, possibly

with more egalitarian social structures” that might be described as “‘simple chiefdoms’ or

even ‘tribal entities’...”.808 In this social context, religion assuredly existed, but it had not

yet taken on a visible form that is readily identifiable in the archaeological record.

Although the few clusters of religious “material correlates” that do exist tend to come

from arenas that could effectively convey social status--the grave and the home-- the

instances of these occurrences are rare, suggesting that any over-arching correlations

between social status and religious authority was quite limited for most Iron Age Sicilian

communities of the time.

In contrast, material correlates for religious activity in Sardinia during this period

are numerous and were already densely concentrated into areas that are clearly

distinguished from other types of settlement space. Nuragic sanctuaries were rooted in

the ritual traditions of the preceding Bronze Age-- many well temples and shrines had

phases that went back to the twelfth century BCE and elements of their architecture drew

on formal prototypes seen in Bronze Age Giants’ tombs. Iron Age Sardinian sanctuaries

showcase a number of features that helped demarcate them from their surroundings: they

often occupy a special location set apart from “profane” elements or are associated with

(super)natural features, such as caves, freshwater springs, or impressive plateaus; they

usually have a temenos; they had numerous installations for ritual practices, including

altars, benches, basins, hearths, and offering receptacles; and they display a huge

investment of wealth through both their construction and their offerings. They also drew

on what seems to have been a widespread shared symbolic system concerned with

fertility, animal symbolism, water, and male virility, and they integrated important

elements of nuragic memory into the ritual context of the sanctuary.

From a very early point Sardinian sanctuaries were also organized into a well-

defined hierarchy in which certain sanctuaries had supra-regional siginficance. I argued

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808 Leighton 1999: 188.

in Chapter 4 that both the distribution of sanctuaries and the variable patterns in their

material records have broader socio-political and economic implications, particularly

given the association of certain sanctuaries with “meeting-huts” and centers of

metallurgical production. Specifically, the larger sanctuaries would have served as

“central places” where a class of elites that extended beyond the immediate community

gathered together and participated in specialized religious worship as a means of both

internal competition within the group and affirmation of their status to those outside the

group.

By the mid-eighth century BCE, however, there was already a rise in the number

of sanctuaries that were not associated with major political centers. At the same time,

there were increasing indications of a new class of elites that were strongly tied to their

own community but not beyond it, and that still drew on traditional ritual symbols and

practices as a way of participating in and directly challenging the older, established order

and its claims to religious authority in particular. Patterns in the settlement evidence also

suggest that parts of the coastal hinterland were emptying out during this period, still

prior to the Phoenicians’ arrival. By 700 BCE, at least one of the large sanctuaries had

undergone a site-wide destruction, never to return to the level of its earlier prestige. This

suggests that while the indigenous setting of Sardinia was one where there was a very

clear established system of religious organization in place, it was also one that was in the

midst of being adapted for new purposes within the changing structure of nuragic society.

In Chapter 3 I argued that after 650 BCE indigenous Sicilians increasingly

dedicated particular places in their communities for the worship of the gods. I showed

that these places often started with non-built, open-air spaces that were assigned for acts

of sacrifice, but quickly moved to including structural features. The building activity that

defined this phase unfolded in various ways, with certain sites building curvilinear “hut-

shrines” and others building elongated bi- or tripartite rectangular buildings, all inside

temene enclosures. Between 700 and 550 BCE, six sites built 11 curvilinear buildings,

but no new hut-shrines appeared after 550 BCE. Nineteen sites built 32 rectilinear shrines

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during this time as well, often decorating them with Greek-produced terracotta

sculptures.

In terms of the labor involved, the materials they required, and the shape they

took, the sacred areas that indigenous Sicilians dedicated in the period after colonization

display vastly more wealth and resources than what had existed in the Iron Age. Sicilian

communities often chose to build in areas with strong natural associations, most notably

on acropoleis, sometimes expending massive resources in order to do so. The new

religious contexts were also distinctly separated from funerary and other parts of the

settlement, a dramatic shift from previous Iron Age ritual settings. The architectural

elaboration of religious space was paralleled by other changes in religious practice. The

number of altars steadily increased during this period, peaking at 35 around 525 BCE.

By this point, every religious building included at least one (usually external) altar, and

significant amounts of ash and burnt and unburnt bones were found near them.

The religious developments at indigenous Sardinian sanctuaries stand almost

diametrically opposed to what was happening in Sicily, the most significant difference

being that as the material expression of religion was exploding across indigenous

communities Sicily, it was quickly dissipating from nuragic ones. Nuragic sanctuaries did

tend to be used longer than other nuragic sites, but overall there was still a progressive

contraction in the number of sanctuaries in use from the late Iron Age on. Iron Age

nuragic sanctuaries near the coast seem to have been refitted for Phoenician-Punic

purposes, particularly after 600-575 BCE.809 Cuccuru s’Arriu, for example, shows signs

of a rural Punic community by 550 BCE, attested by the recovery of some votive stelai,

clay ex-votoes, and substantial ceramic material from inside the sacred well.810 In nuragic

religious contexts that managed to continue, cultural elements that had particular

resonance with nuragic culture were assertive, particularly in the context of meeting huts.

This trend is captured by the betyls and nuraghe-models that date to this time.811

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809 For example, the sacred wells at Cabras-San Salvatore, Cabras-Cuccuru s’Arriu, Arborea, Villaurbana, Narbolia, and Narcao.810 Bondì 1987a: 183-84.811 I.e. Since the betyl was a symbolic representational form that went back to the Neolithic in Sardinia, and since nuraghe-models, according to Lilliu (1988: 67), embodied"la potenza, quasi sacra, e il valore di custodia materiale e spirituale emanante dal monumento megalitico sul sottostante abitato.”

That more elements of Phoenician religious material culture do not make their

way into Sardinian communities is somewhat surprising, especially considering the

evidence for the “cautious development” of the Phoenician hinterland and the increasing

number of places where “culture-contact” would have been possible.812 Barreca notes

seven “possibile” Punic sacred areas in the hinterland of Sulcis, including the mastio

shrine at Monte Sirai and a large sacred area at Corona Arrubia. Opportunities for cultural

exchange via a small Phoenician emporion in what was still nuragic territory have been

suggested by the presence of a cremation cemetery at Su Padrigheddu-S. Vero Milis.813

Cultural exchange has also been postulated for the sanctuary at Antas: the lack of an

urban center near the Phoenician temple indicates its regional character, but its close

association with an older nuragic settlement suggests that this “regional” significance

extended to nuragic communities as well.814 Archaeological remains document the

Phoenician presence further inland as well. The defensive outpost at Pani Loriga, for

example, was already settled by around 570 BCE, quite close to the older nuragic cave

sanctuary at Pirosu. In addition to its defensive and residential quarters, it included a

sacred area (dubitously identified as a tophet). Towards the end of the sixth century, the

site of Santu Teru-Monte Luna was settled as well. Both sites have some tombs with

wealthy assemblages in some of the tombs that have hinted at the presence of an elite

class of Phoenician settlers who in turn would have likely had contact with Sards in the

surrounding territory.815 Yet, although multiple opportunities for cross-cultural exchange

existed, they do not seem to have led to a situation where we can identify a “positive”

response to Phoenician colonial religion.

Cultural diffusion, inference systems, and religion as evolution

As these developments in indigenous religious organization and expression show,

there was a major change in west Mediterranean societies at the end of the Iron Age and

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812 As noted by Dyson and Rowland (2007: 109) in regards to the hinterland of Tharros.813 Tore 1991b.814 Bondì 1987a: 187.815Bondì 1987b: 164 on necropolis at Pani Loriga; Costa 1984b on Santu Teru-Monte Luna.

start of the Archaic period, a period that coincides with the arrival of Greeks and

Phoenicians in the West. As I discussed in Chapter 1, categorizing such changes as

“responses” to colonial religion largely falls under the rubric of comparison. In Chapters

3-6, I used a set of material correlates to organize the evidence related to religious

practice and to chart broader patterns of religious development over time and space.

Archaeological correlates of religion tell us nothing, however, about why we see

similarities and differences between the various communities in question. To do this, an

interpretative framework that comes from outside the archeological remains is necessary.

Two approaches can be combined as a way of formulating this framework. The

first involves using the available evidence to propose causal factors and then playing out

their counterfactuals. The second involves situating the changes seen in the

archaeological record within a Geertzian “web of significance” that can be deduced from

literary and other historical sources. In Chapter 1 I proposed three hypotheses that would

help test the question of why indigenous societies responded in the ways that they did to

the various religious practices met in the Greek and Phoenician colonies. The first

proposed that religious developments in Sicily and Sardinia were part of a widespread

process of a diffusion that can be documented across the Mediterranean during antiquity.

Cultural diffusion has been part of the scholarly consciousness since the mid-nineteenth

century, mostly as a means for understanding the nature of the distribution of human

culture across the world. Simply defined, cultural diffusion implies the spread of culture

(or a part of culture) from its place of origin to other places.816 A more expanded version

defines diffusion as “the process by which discrete culture traits are transferred from one

society to another, through migration, trade, war, or other contact.”817 Early diffusionists

sought to answer questions largely about the evolution of human culture, particularly in

regards to whether it expanded out from single origins or whether it developed in a way

that was similar to biological evolution--i.e. through independent innovations that were

similar because of an underlying human psychological unity.818

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816 Titiev 1959: 446.817 Winthrop 1991: 82.818 E.g. Boas 1938.

In the context of religious development in the west Mediterranean, the

diffusionism thesis sets up the expectation that similar changes in religious material

culture and practice should have occurred at generally the same time and across different

cultural groups. As I showed above, for the case studies in Sicily and Sardinia, this does,

in fact, occur to some degree. Across groups, we can talk about “generalizable” ritual

tendencies that tend to increase in visibility over time. Many of these also seem to go

back to behavior that (pre-)exists any affiliation with proper sanctuaries or contact with

other groups. These include the designation of areas for ritual purposes, sacrifice and

votive deposits, the specialization of both architecture and symbolic iconography to be

used as sacred signifiers, and, underlying all of these things, a (shared) conviction that

such things help human worshippers interact with supra-natural, invisible forces. The

diffusion theory works to the extent that these observables of religious behavior are

present in all the different social contexts and environments of the case studies. The

weakness to the diffusion thesis, however, is that it does not recognize individual

expressions of more general phenomena. In reality, there is no way to falsify the

argument; we can observe that similar things existed among different groups in different

areas, but we still cannot prove that this was caused by diffusion.

As I discussed early on in Chapter 1, recent evolutionary approaches have offered

a variety of different explanations for why religious behavior in both the past and present

is, in many ways, fundamentally similar across cultures. Most of these explanations are

rooted in the idea that all human brains use a process of categorization in which they

induct unseen or unspecified attributes from particular stimuli, resulting in inference

systems.819 According to the inference system framework, religious concepts are those

ontological entities that possess something “counterintuitive” to what we would normally

expect from them while those that are taken most seriously are ones that activate multiple

vital inference systems.820 Boyer argues that the point of understanding how humans

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819 Kruschke 2005: 183-185; Boyer 2001: 57-65.820 Counterintuitive, Boyer (2001: 65) argues, “is a technical term here. It does not mean strange, inexplicable, funny, exceptional or extraordinary. What is counterintuitive here is not even necessarily surprising...used here, [it is] namely ‘including information contradicting some information provided by ontological categories.”

process information and use inferences to explain the world happening around them is to

see that the idea of there being a single origin to religion is inherently flawed: “We can,”

he claims, “and should turn the whole ‘origin’ explanation upside down, as it were, and

realize that the many forms of religion we know are not the outcome of a historical

diversification, but of a constant reduction” (italics original).821 From this perspective, the

various religions of different societies are perpetually undergoing a process of “cultural

transmission” that occurs through the selection of concepts and constant adaptation of

memories to new situations rather than through the diffusion or the replication of cultural

standards and values.822

As we’ve seen in the case studies, there is significant variation in the individual

expressions of the more general religious phenomena, beginning with wide differences

between Greek and Phoenician religious environments, to their internal constitution, to

the collective responses of western Mediterreanean “indigenous” societies, down to the

specific level of individual communities. Thus, even if similar ontological categories of

religious expression developed because of cognitive and biomechanical processes, the

intricate and contingent conditions of social and cultural environments tend to generate

very localized expressions.823 In sum, a benefit to evolutionary approaches is that they

provide a basic toolkit for thinking about religion in trans-historical and cross-cultural

ways. Like the old diffusion theories, however, they still do not fully address anomalies

in the evidence. For the issues of religious development in the west Mediterranean, the

most glaring hole in the explanatory framework is why Sardinian indigenous “responses”

to colonial religion are almost diametrically opposed to those of Sicily and to

contemporary developments in Greek and Phoenician communities.

Population and the density of colonization

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821 Ibid.: 32.822 See, for example, Dawkins 1976. Cultural transmission models often misuse the genetic metaphor by positing culture in terms of genetic memes or “copy-me” programs. Yet these explanations miss one of the most basic points of genetics research; that is, that a requisite part of genetic transmission is the combination and mutation of inherited genes.823 Barkow et al. 1992: 24.

To study ancient history is like hunting hares. The hunter uses a shotgun instead of a rifle. His weapon does not hit the bull’s eye and is not constructed for big game, but the spreading out of the pellets to cover a broader field is very efficient when used against smaller animals. Similarly, the quantifications presented by the ancient historian are never precise, but within certain limits they can provide us with extremely valuable information about ancient societies.824

Another hypothesis for explaining how and why indigenous societies responded to

colonial religion claims that change is dependent on the density of colonization within the

case study areas. By density of colonization I meant not simply the number of sites or

their proximity to indigenous settlements (although these clearly play significant roles as

well), but the number of colonists in a given area. I make this clarification because I want

to separate the density hypothesis from issues of drift or diffusion. In this hypothesis, it is

people who are responsible for the exchange of information and ideas and influence, not

more vague processes of cultural observation or even peer polity interaction. Thus the

hypothesis claims that the more densely populated a region was with colonists, the more

likely that we would see positive responses to colonial religion.825 The natural correlate

of this claim is that correspondence between colonial and indigenous religious

developments can possibly be predicted based on the density of colonial population.

Measuring ancient populations is inherently speculative, especially when they

pertain to pre- and proto-historic contexts. In these cases, the fragmentary nature of

archaeological sources obviously poses problems for even the simplest of tasks, such as

measuring square area for a site or for determining its growth-rate over time. The greatest

obstacle is that we lack sources, most of which never existed in the first place. Ancient

writers rarely report on population statistics and when they do, it is largely in the context

of describing military forces, a topic often subject to literary polishing for heightening

both narrative and historical appeal. The insight into population numbers that epigraphic

sources can provide is rapidly expanding, but for the Archaic and Classical periods, the

material still tends to come mostly from the Greek mainland and particularly from Attica.

Sources for the west Mediterranean are, moreover, nearly non-existent. As referenced

above, Mogens Hansen confronts some of these issues by using a “shotgun method” for

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824 Hansen 2006: 1.825 By “positive” I do not imply something inherently “good” or beneficial about the response; I use the term as shorthand for “positivist,” in which the consequence of the event is an observable datum.

studying the population of ancient Greek poleis. Hansen argues that most demographic

methods have either inferred too much from textual descriptions, equated segments of the

population with general population figures, relied too heavily on modern measures (of

either population or carrying capacity), or been generally static.826 The method that

Hansen proposes is based on urbanization, the most basic unit being the percentage of

inhabited space within the intramural area of cities. An average number of persons/

hectare of inhabited space is assumed and then combined with the number of people in

the polis’ extramural territory for a total population estimate.

It is not imperative that I rehash all the benefits and drawbacks of the various

demographic methods available, but I should clarify both why I think Hansen’s method is

one of the better options and my own assumptions that are necessary for the particular

situation of colonial populations in Sicily and Sardinia. The most important is that the

principal evidence that the method uses consists of the physical remains of settlements.

This is important for three main reasons. First, the non-reliance on literary references

means that many of the settlements for which we have little to no textual reference can be

included in the sample. Although some will certainly disagree with my decision to do so

here, I have assumed that the fundamental principles of the method hold true for both

Greek and Phoenician settlements. Second, the method stresses degrees of urbanization. I

combine this argument with broader studies of colonial urbanization to show that we can

use the presence or absence of certain urban traits to calculate inhabited space for sites

that we cannot excavate. For example, there is general agreement that colonial

Phoenician sites with tophets were urban centers and not merely emporia. Since we know

the intramural space for both Motya (45 ha) and Tharros (20 ha), both sites that had

tophets, I argue that other “urban”-tophet-having Phoenician colonies would have had at

a minimum roughly similar areas. Third, the method allows for the inclusion of data

captured from other remains--namely, domestic housing-- for coming up with alternative

estimates. Estimates made from the domestic data are particularly significant because, as

Lisa Nevett has pointed out, the housing sectors for the early phases of many colonial

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826 Ibid.: 5-15, 77-89.

settlements (Akragas, Himera, and Motya, notably) are scattered, arranged in groups and

do not follow the same linear organization that is seen in later phases.827

Above I referred to the “fundamental principles” of Hansen’s method. These

include: a) that the average number of people per hectare of urban inhabited space ranges

between 150 to 200 individuals;828 b) that population estimates should include both

people living in the urban center and outside it; and c) that inhabited space will always be

a percentage (that does, however, vary between sites and over time) of actual settlement

area. I also make some adjustments to Hansen’s approach, the most notable being that I

take Hansen’s recognition that population is not a static entity, but one that changes

significantly through time, seriously. Although it inevitably involves simplifying a much

more complicated body of evidence, I assume that population tended to double each (50-

year) generation through natural increase and then work backwards from Hansen’s C4

(late Classical) measurements of Greek population size to try and estimate population for

the more Archaic phases of the study regions. I also try to estimate rural population more

from surveys of known areas than to work off of rough assumptions of the distribution of

population across urban and non-urban space. While the averages that Hansen proposes

are, I think, useful for late Classical poleis and getting a general estimate of how many

Greeks there were in toto, the assumption that two-thirds of the population lived outside

the city is not accurate for discussing early colonies. R.J.A. Wilson and J. Leonard’s

survey outside of Heraklea Minoa, for example, showed that while late sixth-century

levels were clearly attested in the domestic and funerary areas of the site, there “certainly

was no other evidence for farms or other building of Archaic or Classical date in the

countryside around Heraklea.”829 For the first three generations of colonial settlement,

then, I focus almost exclusively on the colonies’ intramural populations. Only in the mid-

sixth century, when we see that Selinus establishes its own “colony,” do the average

distributions of population fit the pattern of site development.

324

827 Nevett 2001: 128-36.828 Based on assumpion that there were 30-33 houses on one hectare of urban inhabited space; thus the number of inhabitants will range between c. 150 (5 x 30) people/ha and c. 200 (6 x 33) people/ha. 829 Wilson and Leonard 1980: 227.

Population estimates for most of the sites in the case study areas are given below.

For clarity’s sake, the first table presents the data as they are calculated through each of

Hansen’s steps. For the Phoenician sites in Sardinia, very little is known about their

“territories” and at least in Tharros’ case, smaller house sizes suggest that the inhabited

space had a higher density; thus, I calculate the Tharros urban population using the

average of 200 ind/ha instead of the more minimal 150. It should be noted, as I said

before, these beginning calculations are based on the late Classical numbers, particularly

in regards to “territorial” populations.

Site Total intramural space in ha

(N)

Non-Public % /

resulting ha of

private space

Urban population (150 or 200

x (N)ha)

Territorial population (2/3 or 1/2

total)

Total urban

population/city

Total population

for case study region

Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)Greek sites (in Sicily)

Himera 32 (plateau) + 50 (low)

(.75 x 32) + (.5 x 50) = 24 +25 = 49 ha

7350 14,700 22,050

Selinus 100 (.5 x 100) = 50

7500 15,000 22,500

Akragas 450 (.55 x 450) = 247.5

37, 125 74,250 111,375

Heraklea Minoa

140 (.56 x 140) = 78.4

11, 760 11,760 23,520 179,445 (total Greek population)

Phoenician sites (in Sicily)Phoenician sites (in Sicily)Phoenician sites (in Sicily)Phoenician sites (in Sicily)Phoenician sites (in Sicily)Phoenician sites (in Sicily)

Motya 45 (.75 x 45) = 33.75

5,062 (1/2) 5,062 ?

10,124 ?

Panormos* 45 (.75 x 45) = 33.75

5602 5,062 ? 10,124 ?

Solunto 18 (late Punic city)

13.5 2,025 2,025 ? 4,050 ? 24,298 (total Ph-Pu Sic pop)

325


(N)

Non-Public % /

resulting ha of

private space


x (N)ha)


total)

Total urban

population/city

Total population


Solunto 18 (late Punic city)

13.5 2,025 2,025 ? 4,050 ?

203,743 (all “colonial” Sicily)

Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)Phoenician sites (in Sardinia)

Sulcis* 45 ? (.75 x 45) = 33.75

5,062 ? (1/2) 5,062 ?

10,124 ?

Tharros 20 15 - 10 3000-2000 2000 5000-4000

Nora* 20 15 - 10 3000-2000 2000 5000-4000

Bithia* 20 15 - 10 3000-2000 2000 5000-4000

Othoca 10-15 7.5-11.25 1500-2250 750-1125 2250-3375

Karalis* 20 15-10 3000-2000 2000 5000-4000

Monte Sirai*

10-15 5-7.5 750-1125 375-563 1125-1688 33,499 (total urban Phoe-Pun population)

Rural Survey EstimatesRural Survey EstimatesRural Survey EstimatesRural Survey EstimatesRural Survey EstimatesRural Survey EstimatesRural Survey Estimates

Neapolis* 4.5 km perimeter wall1 site/km

14 sq. km = 7 sites 3000-4000 sq m; 2 sites 15,534 m; 2 small farms, 1 hamlet

7 x 26-50= 182-3502 x 50-70= 100-1402 x 8= 161 x 20-24

318-530

Terralba Territory

29.5 sq km3.8 sites/km

109 stlmts, 7 cmtries

102 x 26-50= 2652-51007 x 35-50 = 245-350

2894-5450

Sanluri Territory

84.16 sq km or .4 sites/km

17 stlmts, 8 cmteries

9 x 26-50=234-4507 x 35-50= 245-350

479-770

326


(N)

Non-Public % /

resulting ha of

private space


x (N)ha)


total)

Total urban

population/city

Total population


Gesturi Territory

27 sq km/ .4 sites/km

7 stlmts, 4 cmtries

3 x 26-50= 78-1504 x 35-50= 140-200

218-350

Barumini 51.8 sq km/ in roman pd 1.4 sites/km

“substantial Punic settlement”: 10-14 houses/50-70 people

2 sites + probably more

1 x 50-702 x 20-24

70-94

N. Arborea ? 8 stlmts, 2 cmtries, 2 shrines

4 x 26-50= 104-2002 x 35-50= 70-1002 x 50= 100

274-400

Sinis ? 11 stlmts, 5 cmtries, 5 shrines

1 x 26-505 x 35-50= 175-2505 x 50= 250

451-550Sinis ? 11 stlmts, 5 cmtries, 5 shrines

1 x 26-505 x 35-50= 175-2505 x 50= 250

4704-8124 (rural Phoe-Pun population)

38,203-41,623 (total Pho-Pun population estimate for Sardinia case study)

38,203-41,623 (total Pho-Pun population estimate for Sardinia case study)

Table 7-1. Estimates of population size associated with the major Greek and Phoenician colonial settlements in Sicily and Sardinia.

The case study area for Sardinia is smaller and there is a great need for more

information about the sites and their territories. Consequently, the estimates above are

highly speculative and very likely incorrect; I would emphasize that this is a first attempt

that will certainly need to be revised. What I want to show here is that there is the

potential that combining the “shotgun method” of population estimates for cities with the

known survey evidence can be an effective way of approaching the material. Surveys

tend to talk about site density, that is, how many sites are found in a given area, as

opposed to population. Once again, not having first hand evidence means that we have to

interpolate population measurements from various sources of information.

327

The most recent and thorough studies of central-southwestern Sardinia have been

conducted by Peter Van Dommelen. Van Dommelen combined his results with those of

other surveys in the upper and central Campidano and Marmilla area to produce a much

denser measure of Punic settlement. Van Dommelen nor his associates define what the

differences are in “settlement,” “hamlet,” or “village,” although “small farm” and other

descriptives are somewhat more straight forward. Van Dommelen does, however,

describe the Phase V settlement at Barumini as a “substantial Punic settlement.”

Excavations at Su Nuraxi showed that during the Punic-Roman phase, roughly 70 ‘vani’

were used, about 50 of which belonged to the previous period. Lilliu estimates that in the

previous period, there were over 100 rooms (or, better, 14 houses) present for family

groups of 7; this would put the population of the site during the preceding nuragic Iron

Age and Archaic phases at roughly 100. The Punic-Roman site was clearly smaller, and

probably both houses and population was lower. I would suggest a lower family count as

well--perhaps 5-6 per family-- bringing the population to about 50-70 people. This would

also seem to jive with Van Dommelen’s estimations of some sites as “quite large” if they

are equal to or greater than a hectare.

What does all of this mean? If Barumini is a “substantial settlement” then all the

other plain “settlements” must be lower than 50-70 individuals. Correlatively, they must

also be larger than “small farms,” which I take to mean single-family farms with some

cases of slave labor, probably equaling 7 to 8 individuals. “Hamlet” and “settlement”

both imply more than one house, and probably more than two, with “settlement” larger

than “hamlet.” Some minimums might thus be proposed: “farm” = 7-8 individuals;

“hamlet” = 20-25 individuals; settlement = 26-50 individuals. Cemeteries present

alongside sites allude to longer site habitation and probably the larger size of some

settlements as well, but it is unclear exactly what the ratio is for sites that have cemeteries

and those who do not. I assume (perhaps wrongly) that each of the cemeteries goes with

one of the settlements reported and thus measure population by increasing the number of

individuals for the group with cemeteries.

328

The square area for the case study area in Sicily is roughly 10,300 sq. km, with a

density of colonization of 19.78 ind./sq. km based on the combined population estimates

from both Greek and Phoenician settlements. The square area for the Sardinia study is

smaller, measuring roughly 6816 sq. km, as is the population density of 6-8 indiv./sq. km.

This is significantly lower than the population estimates that Van Dommelen’s “1 site/sq.

km” survey results imply for the central Campidano. Part of the low density calculations

are due to lack of precise estimates of square area for the ancient cities and for the fact

that I have not included certain sites in the analysis due to the lack of clarity as to whether

they should be classified as “Punic” or “Punicized” indigenous; none of these latter

settlements include sacred areas either. With more time and better research into the study

of measuring urban Phoenician settlements and rural populations more generally, these

numbers would likely increase.

In Sicily, the density of colonization is based on both Greek and Phoenician

colonists, lumped together into an aggregate “colonial” category. Sardinia was nearly

devoid of Greek settlement though, and any effects that might be attributed to the

“density of colonization” must be from the Phoenicians alone. As my tentative analysis

shows, the Sicilian case study region was perhaps significantly more densely colonized

than the Sardinian area. This was especially so in the Archaic period, as documented by

the more intensive survey of Terralba. Here, there was an exponential increase in sites

between the sixth and late fourth centuries: 12 settlements were founded in the sixth

century whereas 59 began in the fourth century. Since I used survey results that primarily

defined sites as “Punic,” and that did not always distinguish between sites that belonged

to the Archaic or Classical periods, it is likely that the earlier population estimates were

even lower than what I have proposed. The density of colonization hypothesis is certainly

worth looking at more carefully and with better methodology, it could hold quite a bit

more water. For now, however, the approach is largely too speculative to serve as a valid

explanation on its own. Thus, we need to once again look for more explanations.

Selective integration, coordination problems, and “polis” religion

329

The third hypothesis claims that the changes occurred as part of a process of

selective integration of colonial religious material cultural and practices by indigenous

communities. The counterfactual to this hypothesis would be that if the process was not

selective, there should be a random distribution of all types of material culture and

practices. As I argued in Chapter 6, however, “random” does not seem to be a very fit

description for the developments that occur. In Sicily, these developments varied between

indigenous communities, but the evidence for the material correlates tends to conform to

repetitive trends. I argued that in some ways, the pattern of religious development in

Sicilian communities paralleled contemporary developments in the Greek colonies,

although generally at a less monumental level. These tendencies seemed particularly

strong when compared to developments in the Phoenician world. This seems the case

even though variance between Phoenician sites in Sicily and those in Sardinia perhaps

indicates a pattern in which most communities in Sicily--regardless of their cultural

association-- participated to some degree in using commonly-recognized forms of

religious culture and modes of religious expression. Those religious components that

seemed exclusive to Phoenician religious practice--tophet ritual, betyls, strong emphases

on purification, etc--were notably absent from indigenous sites as well. Religious

developments in some communities, moreover, indicate a radical break from Iron Age

ritual organization, but do not conform to the specific types of material culture or

practices of either colonial group.

The major strength to this hypothesis is that causality for religious development is

largely attributed to indigenous agency and is seen to be outside of the realm of “colonial

influence.” On its own, however, it still does not answer two major points, the first being

why indigenous ritual organization changed at all, and the second being why specific

material expressions of religion appear over and over again while others never take hold.

The question of why Iron Age societies in Sicily “responded” or changed their mode of

religious expression is part of a larger question about why people give material forms to

religious belief. Anthropological studies, and especially those linked to evolutionary

theory, stress that material forms of religious practice often arise in tandem with increases

330

in levels of social complexity. In Palaeolithic societies, the appearance of representational

art in ritual settings has been seen as a byproduct of the overlap of Neanderthals and the

modern human species with higher-order consciousness. David Lewis-Williams argues

that the Upper Palaeolithic environment was one in which at least some people (‘the

seers’) were already invested with images; all that was needed for translating these

images into “ritual” forms of representation were “social conditions that made it

advantageous for the seers and their communities to 'recreate' those evanescent images,

and thereby to gain control over them and to demonstrate to others their contact with

spiritual realms. In doing so, they entrenched a form of cross-cutting social

discrimination that was independent of age, sex and physical strength. Complex society

as we know it was thus being born.”830 The inextricable relationship between increasing

social complexity and the rise of religious institutions was also an important feature in

early studies of “the state,” particularly in relation to the evolution of sanctuary space

from private property to state-owned and divine-sanctioned land.831 Each of these

scenarios stress that religious development in material terms is inherently tied to

demographic growth and increased opportunity for the exploitation of economic,

political, and social networks. The end consequence is that the development of religious

institutions is thus inherently tied to the growth of different social classes and the tension

between them.

Attributing formalizations in religious behavior to increases in social complexity

presupposes that religion existed for social reasons. Trying to understand what religion

did for early societies was one of the main thrusts of functional-structuralist approaches,

but as Boyer points out, the great weakness of classical functionalism was that “it

assumed that institutions were around so that society could function, but it did not explain

how or why individuals would participate in making society function.”832 Social theorists

have approached things differently, looking more at how “rituals” (which I take to

include religious ritual) help in resolving “coordination problems.” Coordination

331

830 Lewis-Williams 2003: 266.831 Cf. Fustel de Coulanges 1984/1864: 69, as discussed in Finley 1977: 311-12; see also Ucko et al. 1972; Martin 1975.832 Boyer 2001: 26.

problems arise when individuals want to participate in collective or group action but only

if others also participate.833 Michael Chwe claims that the heart of the issue is

communicating common knowledge of overarching issues of political and social

authority, a field that includes systems of social status, implicit and explicit rules of

behavior, and the entire set of ideas and institutions that guide social interaction. Rituals,

then, make public (i.e. make common knowledge) a set of beliefs and rules about how

society should function. Moreover, by being held publicly, they also communicate the

willingness of individuals to transcend social differences to resolve problems in order to

act collectively.

“Coordination problems” seem to be a good way of thinking about what both

indigenous and colonial communities were facing in the period that followed

colonization. Carol Dougherty has argued that explanations and descriptions of

colonization processes are steeped in a colonial discourse that relies on stylistic literary

devices to represent change, power transitions, cultural ideology, and culture contact.834

Colonization stories were never literal (or even accurate) representations of “facts,” but

rather responses to contemporary civic needs and active forces in cultural negotiations of

colonial societies. In short, they metaphorically represent very large “coordination

problems” having to do with political authority and social integration. Specific references

to rituals resolving problems in the early Greek colonies are rare, but the literary record

frequently alludes to general disagreements and social tensions within them. The literary

tradition for Himera depicts a city often in the throes of upheaval or at risk, both from

outside forces and internal disagreements among the citizenry. Aristotle’s quotation of

Stesichorus is telling in this regard since it not only reveals the city in enough trouble that

they needed to seek help from Phalaris, the Akragatine tyrant; it also shows them

332

833 Chwe notes that collective action problems are often referred to as free-rider issues (e.g. Chong 1991; Moore 1995), but they are more principally coordination problems. In free-rider situations, no person wants to participate under any circumstances: each person always prefers to “free ride” on the participation of others. Solving free-rider problems requires enlarging people’s possible motivations, by for example legal or social sanctions against free riders or repeated contexts in which free riding now might make people not cooperate with you later. Solving coordination problems, on the other hand, does not require changing people’s motivations: when everyone cooperates, each person wants to do so because everyone else is. 834 Dougherty 1993.

debating (and, implicitly, not agreeing on) whether to give Phalaris a bodyguard.835 At

Akragas, the number of different foundation stories and references to particular

genealogies in the literary record also signify serious social problems there. Domenico

Musti has argued that the diversity of foundation stories for the colony should be seen in

terms of cultural memory of the variety of groups who settled there and their competing

claims to colonial primacy.836 This debate materialized most notably in the form of

genealogical lineages and “mother-city” origins, the implication that lines more involved

in the foundation had greater property rights and political legitimacy.837 The tears in the

social fabric of the Greek colonies conveyed by texts may be supported by other (non-

sacred) archaeological evidence as well.838

Evidence related to coordination problems in the early Phoenician colonies is

much more obscure and generally comes from significantly later contexts. Necropoleis

show that by the beginning of the sixth century there was a significant class of elite

within the Phoenician settlements, while other sources indicate that they were probably

actively involved in the administration and construction of sanctuaries. The Archaic

bronze plaque at Antas, for example, documents a certain [-]rtyathon’s role in solely

funding the covering of the temple’s roof, probably a new addition to the temple at the

end of the sixth century.839 In addition, the injection of Carthage into the affairs of the

Phoenician colonies in the sixth century must have changed their social and political

situations significantly.

333

835 The reasons for why Himera needed assistance are not entirely clear, but an inscription (c. 550 BCE) found at Samos that reports conflicts between Himera and the Sikan tribes may provide some clues.836 Musti 1992: 31-35; compare, for example, Thucydides VI.4.4., Pseudo-Scymnus, 292 ff. and Strabo VI.2.5.837 Pindar’s interpretation (Pind. Ol. II. 7-9) seems crucial. Van Compernolle (1992) has proposed that in the first years after the foundation, a landed aristocracy developed that was based on the appropriation of land on the part of the first apoikiai. Another social class later developed in opposition to the founded aristocracy, probably in relation with the continual inlflux of new settlers.838 Cf. Bonacasa 1976: 25; Allegro 1999. For the domestic sector at Himera, Allegro and Vassalo (1992) have noted that early houses were clustered around “strategic poles” close to the temenos of Athena and the south gate, where the city was connected to its chora. In addition, the sixth-century reorganization of the town plan aimed to split residential blocks into equal parts--a process of subdivision that was “legato al concetto dell’eguaglianza tra i cittadini della colonia rifondata...”839 Zucca 1989: 34-35.

Coordination problems stemming from changes in social complexity surely

existed for indigenous communities as well and this may be one of the main reasons for

why we see indigenous ritual organization change after the arrival of Greeks and

Phoenicians. In Sicily, as I said at the beginning of this section, the patterns in the

evidence show that certain changes happened over and over again, many of which

parallel things that were happening in Greek sites. By looking at the evidence with a

close eye towards the chronology and regional patterns, we can also identify an east-west

trend, with some of the first indications of material correlate concentration appearing in

the eastern part of the study area (and, thus, closer to Greek colonies) and then slightly

later in the west. This seems significant, particularly since both eastern and western parts

of the case study area show basically similar types of “religious”-like activity and

organization during the Iron Age.

In Sardinia, “coordination problems” seem to have stemmed from changes in

nuragic society that started to happen before the Phoenicians arrived. The most

significant of these was the rise of a new social class that put great emphasis on

individual or familial prestige, as indicated by the burials at Monte Prama, and who laid

claim to older symbols of religion and political authority. The disruptions to older power

structures caused by internal strife must have shaken things enough to set off the

contraction of both settlements and sanctuaries. The situation was then exacerbated by the

arrival of the Phoenicians. One possible interpretation of the lack of “response” to

Phoenician colonial religion by Sard communities therefore is that Phoenican religion did

not offer the right rituals or organizational structure for solving the particular

coordination problems facing indigenous communities: how does one negotiate well-

established hierarchies of ritual and power with the rise of new competitors?

The lack of response among Sards, and the fact that they seem to ignore

Phoenician religious material culture and practices, suggests that a significant difference

between Greek and Phoenician colonial religious systems was the extent to which they

addressed coordination problems. For Classicists, the language is different, but the idea

of religion and coordination problems has come up over and over again in studies of the

334

rise of the polis. In these studies, changes in ritual organization are closely linked to a

shift in social ideology, and particularly in one that separated political and social power

away from claims of religious authority. It is beyond the reach of this project to treat the

topic exhaustively, but in order to gain a more complete view of how religion of the

Greek colonies would have been steeped in this ideology, it’s useful to look at an example

more closely. In addition, it’s useful to look at one development of a material correlate

that has references in texts in order to situate it within its wider social and cultural

context.

The development of physical temene is a good example. In the literary record, it is

well established that ‘temenos’ only acquired its narrower lexical meaning as a ‘sacred

area’ in its post-Homeric usage. Less attention has been paid, however, to how such this

literary shift may be tied up with actual physical changes in sacred space during the Iron

Age and Archaic periods. Modern dictionaries define “temenos” as a space that was ‘cut

off’ and perhaps assigned to a particular domain, but a closer analysis of the literary

context of its use reveals more. Homeric usage of the word (particularly in the Iliad), in

particular, contrasts with what we see in almost all other Archaic and Classical Greek

literature. Temene are mentioned thirteen times in the Homeric poems, and three times in

the Hymns;840 a single reference to a temenos has also been attributed to Hesiod (Frag.

Astro. F 8, l 6). Of these temene, seven are described as being designated for gods; the

others are assigned to men (albeit men who would be heroized through the transmission

of the epics). In several cases, the gods’ temene are formulaically accompanied by

‘fragrant altars,’ but they can also stand alone as what might be translated as a grove or

simply a ‘sacred precinct.’

Temene set apart for men are a different story, not just because they are for

humans and not gods, but also because the process through which they are distributed

usually involves somewhat extenuating circumstances. They commonly refer to lands that

either belong to a king or that are used as bargaining chips by those trying to persuade

others. In Il. Book 9, for example, Phoenix recounts a story in which the Aetolian elders

335

840 Il. 2.696; 6.194; 8.48; 9.578; 12.313; 18.550; 20.184; 20.391; 23.148. Od. 6.293; 8.363; 11.185; 17.299. Hymn to Apollo, line 88; Hymn to Aphrodite, lines 59 and 267; Hymn to Pan, line 31.S

begged Meleagros to come forth and defend his city, promising him a temenos partitioned

from the most fertile land in Kalydon if he would join the fight.841 In the end, it was the

entreaties of Meleagros’ wife that most influenced him (9.590-98), but more important is

the fact that a temenos was used as an incentive in the first place. To unpack this a bit

more, the temenos is offered as a gift, a !"#$%; the gift is by no means inconsequential,

but it still is something that is exchanged, and can, in many cases, constitute one part of a

reciprocal agreement—in this case, a temenos in return for military action.842 It also has a

high material value—it is chosen from the richest (&'()*)$%) lands, and is already

designated to be used for both the production of wine and as “unworked ploughland.”

The economic or agricultural potential of a temenos is a quality that several other

passages allude to as well.843 Other Iliadic references to temene imply further that the

“giving” of a temenos to a man was, much in the way that one dedicated a temenos to a

deity, a form of honor. In Book 12 (310-14), for instance, Sarpedon asks Glaukos why

they are honored ()+)'µ,µ+-.*) beyond all others in Lycia, especially in the way that they

are looked upon as if they were gods and that they are appointed a temenos ()/µ+%$0

%+µ(µ+-.*). So, while poetic representations of temenos assignments could often appear

calculating and need-driven, they also depict an underlying ideological framework that

recognized and reinforced the idea that, in certain cases, people also deserved temene or

other god-like honors. Only a few cases attest to this implication explicitly, but certainly

the other, more minimal passages are also suggestive—certain lands are considered

temene because they belong to either kings (cf. Od. 17.299) or are “the ancestral lands” of

a particular family (cf. Il. 20.391).

336

841 Iliad 9.574-580. [&1#23% 4*55$µ/%3%:] )6% !7 58--$%)$ 2/#$%)+0/ 9:)35;%, &/µ&$% !7 .+;% <+#=*0 >#8-)$?0,/ @A+5.+B% C*D >µE%*' F&$-G(µ+%$' µ/2* !;#$%:/ H&&(.' &'()*)$% &+!8$% I*5?!;%$0 @#*%%=0,/ J%.K µ'% L%32$% )/µ+%$0 &+#'C*5570 M5/-.*'/ &+%)NC$%)(2?$%, )6 µ7% Oµ'-? $:%$&/!$'$,/ Oµ'-? !7 P'5Q% R#$-'% &+!8$'$ )*µ/-.*'. 842 Interestingly, the gifting of a temenos also seems to occur in passages that involve several “rounds” of ritualized gift exchange. Bellerophontes’ receipt of a temenos (Il.6.194), for example, is narratologically related not just to the story of Bellerophontes’ travails in Lycia, but also to the bonds of guest friendship that, as Diomedes proclaims, once bound his father, Oineus, and Bellerophantes, and thus which continue to bind Diomedes and Glaukos (6.215-21).843 See, for example, Il. 2.696, 6.194, 18.550 and Od. 11.185, 17.299.

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http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=i%28erh%3Das&la=greek&prior=qew=n

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=a%29ri%2Fstous&la=greek&prior=i(erh=as

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=a%29ri%2Fstous&la=greek&prior=i(erh=as

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29celqei%3Dn&la=greek&prior=a)ri/stous

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29celqei%3Dn&la=greek&prior=a)ri/stous

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=kai%5C&la=greek&prior=e)celqei=n

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=kai%5C&la=greek&prior=e)celqei=n



http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=u%28posxo%2Fmenoi&la=greek&prior=a)mu=nai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=u%28posxo%2Fmenoi&la=greek&prior=a)mu=nai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=me%2Fga&la=greek&prior=u(posxo/menoi

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=me%2Fga&la=greek&prior=u(posxo/menoi

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=dw%3Dron&la=greek&prior=me/ga

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=dw%3Dron&la=greek&prior=me/ga

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=o%28ppo%2Fqi&la=greek&prior=dw=ron

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=o%28ppo%2Fqi&la=greek&prior=dw=ron

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pio%2Ftaton&la=greek&prior=o(ppo/qi

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pio%2Ftaton&la=greek&prior=o(ppo/qi

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pedi%2Fon&la=greek&prior=pio/taton

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pedi%2Fon&la=greek&prior=pio/taton

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=*kaludw%3Dnos&la=greek&prior=pedi/on

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=*kaludw%3Dnos&la=greek&prior=pedi/on

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29rannh%3Ds&la=greek&prior=*kaludw=nos

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29rannh%3Ds&la=greek&prior=*kaludw=nos

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29%2Fnqa%2F&la=greek&prior=e)rannh=s

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=e%29%2Fnqa%2F&la=greek&prior=e)rannh=s

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=min&la=greek&prior=e)/nqa/

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=min&la=greek&prior=e)/nqa/

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=h%29%2Fnwgon&la=greek&prior=min

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=h%29%2Fnwgon&la=greek&prior=min

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=te%2Fmenos&la=greek&prior=h)/nwgon

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=te%2Fmenos&la=greek&prior=h)/nwgon

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=perikalle%5Cs&la=greek&prior=te/menos

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=perikalle%5Cs&la=greek&prior=te/menos



http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=penthkonto%2Fguon&la=greek&prior=e(le/sqai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=penthkonto%2Fguon&la=greek&prior=e(le/sqai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=to%5C&la=greek&prior=penthkonto/guon

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=to%5C&la=greek&prior=penthkonto/guon





http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=oi%29nope%2Fdoio&la=greek&prior=h(/misu

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=oi%29nope%2Fdoio&la=greek&prior=h(/misu

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=h%28%2Fmisu&la=greek&prior=oi)nope/doio

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=h%28%2Fmisu&la=greek&prior=oi)nope/doio

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=de%5C&la=greek&prior=h(/misu

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=de%5C&la=greek&prior=h(/misu





http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pedi%2Foio&la=greek&prior=a)/rosin

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=pedi%2Foio&la=greek&prior=a)/rosin

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=tame%2Fsqai&la=greek&prior=pedi/oio

For the Homeric audience, individuals like these were already “heroes.”844 But,

this does not make the interpretation anachronistic; rather, it reinforces the idea that at the

time of these poems’ compositions, it was not necessarily a long-stretch to think both that

certain individuals could earn honors that exceeded normal forms of recognition and that

temene were not yet formalized in the mindset of the Greeks as exclusive for deities. Both

these conditions, I argue, need to be recognized by scholars if we want to understand and

situate the development of Greek religious space in relation to the existing social and

political conditions that existed, but were rapidly changing, over the course of the late

Iron Age and early Archaic period.

I say “rapidly changing,” because just as the archaeological evidence indicates a

dramatic shift in the physical appearance of sacred spaces starting ca. 700 and that

intensifying up through 550 BCE, literary uses of temenos changed rather abruptly as

well. Lyric and elegiac allusions to temene (usually considered to date later than the

Homeric poems) are almost always accompanied by the adjective “sacred” (‘'+#(%). Most

of the temene are, additionally, assigned to specific divinities. This shift cannot, I think,

be solely attributed to generic difference. Given the parallel developments observed in the

archaeological record, I think the pattern in the poetic usage of temenos betrays a deeper,

ideological transformation of what qualified, in the minds of the Greeks, as sacred space.

In the sixth century, temene are never given to men. In fact, there is only one case (Pind.

Isth. 1.59) where a temenos is even said to exist for a ‘hero,’ that of Protesilas’ sacred

ground in Phylace (Protesilas being the first Greek to have set foot in Troy upon the

Greeks’ arrival), and it never seems to have gained the same status as temene dedicated to

gods: Herodotus (9.116, 6-9) tells us that the Persian leader Artaÿactes converted the

temenos into cornfields and pastureland and then polluted the shrine itself by having

intercourse with women inside the inner sanctum (predictably, he was later killed by the

Athenians).

What this digression shows is that by the Archaic period, there had been enough

of an ideological shift about certain religious concepts in the Greek world for it to show

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844 By “heroes,” I mean the way that scholars now recognize late Iron Age and Archaic conceptions of their Bronze Age (to some extent, mythical) ancestors.

up in both material and literary forms. Moreover, this shift seemed to emphasize that

spaces dedicated to gods and the power or honor associated with that was no longer

suitable for men of basically any type. Instead there was a strong focus on temene for

gods being used for collective purposes, dedicated by “cities” or promised at turning

moments for the city’s development and stability-- battles, the foundation of colonies, the

return of exiles, and others that tested the city collective. This has significant implications

for how we understand both religious developments in both Greek and indigenous

communities. There was a strong element in the Greek colonies of using sanctuaries as

“document[s] of the vigor, authority, and international prestige of the state” or as a

political choice by the polis to “express the wealth and unity of the polis.”845 There are

references that this unity extended to the level of public financing, as alluded to in

Polyaenus’ (Strat. 5.1.1) record of the Akragantines’ construction of the temple of Zeus

with “public money” 200 talents or in Diodorus’ (xi.25.1) note that war spoils were used

for the embellishment of the temples of Himera and Syracuse after the victory at Himera

over the Carthaginians.

Greek colonial religion, I argue, manifested this ideology in a number of different,

and not neccessarily always congruous, ways. In many ways, the ritual practices like

sacrifice and votive offerings of very humble materials seem to be ones that subordinated

the status of the individual to the representation of the city as a polis and were activities

that fostered group participation and were accessible to all social levels. The massive

enterprise of building monumental temples helped project this image as well, particularly

in defining the city to outsiders.

The longer-term consequences of religious development: the fifth century BCE

If this study had ended at 500 BCE, the main conclusion might be that some

indigenous societies responded to colonial religion and some didn’t and we might label

these responses as evidence of “hybridity” or “cultural contact.” However, by following

the developments of the sixth century into the following generations, we can interpret the

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845 Pugliese Caratelli 1985: 13; Gullini 1985: 21.

longer-term consequences of certain religious developments. The changes of the fifth

century can also be linked more securely to historical events in the literary record,

increasing the scope of interpretation.

Sardinia appears to have been was somewhat destabilized during the fifth century,

as several of the large Phoenician settlements-- Othoca, Bithia, Nora, Sulcis, Monte

Sirai-- suffered partial destruction and/or abandonment and there was a strong move

inland on behalf of the indigenous population. The record of the 509 BCE treaty between

Rome and Carthage strongly hints that Carthage played a signficant role in these events,

even in the destruction of the Phoenician sites. While some cities declined, however,

others seem to have grown, suggesting that some cities profited from both the losses at

other sites and from the new political and economic situation with Carthage. Looting in

the nineteenth century in the Tharros necropolis produced more than 4000 scarabs, even

more jewels, and at least 10,000 rings as well as enormous amounts of glass and pottery,

demonstrating the near-absurd levels of wealth present at Tharros from the end of the

sixth century onwards.846 Similarly, the smaller center at newly-minted Neapolis seems to

have had an advanced commericial network of contacts outside of the Punic orbit.847 In

terms of religious activity, fifth-century Phoenician cities in Sardinia show fewer signs of

comparable growth or investment in religion, although most of them continued to be

visited. Even at Tharros, where citizens clearly had wealth available, there was no

overarching effort to invest it-- or, at least, not that much of it-- in either the construction

or renovation of civic sanctuaries. For sanctuaries that were built or survived, the

evidence shows a standardization in religious material culture that conforms to

Carthaginian models; Carthaginian iconography, the use of gola egizia architectural

decoration, manipulations of Doric architectural forms, and Carthaginian movable

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846 Zucca 1998: 9-15; Acquaro (ed.) 2006.847 As documented by the large quantities of Attic pottery found in and around the site (Zucca 1987: 51-52, 99-100, 191).

material culture all became much more widespread at this point.848

At the same time, there was an almost complete drop in the use of indigenous

Sardinian sanctuaries. In Chapter 4 I discussed how it was unclear whether the fifth-

century gap in the archaeological record was due to visibility issues or larger, more

substantive developments. What is clear, though, is that almost all of the old indigenous

centers of power and sacred life no longer fulfilled the same purposes they had had prior

to the arrival of the Phoenicians and in the period immediately afterwards. The first

indications we have of a resurgence in indigenous religious activity come at the close of

the fifth century and then especially in the fourth century. At this time, there are signs of

the reuse of old well sanctuaries and the rehabilitation of old nuraghi as rural shrines,

mostly for worship linked to agrarian fertility; by the middle of the fourth century, there

were at least 28 shrines of this sort in the case study area. Van Dommelen argues that the

combination of material culture in these shrines points to a sort of hybridization of

indigenous ritual traditions and Punic Demeter cult, mostly in the use of lamps and the

dedication of terracotta figurines in these shrines.849 Yet, from a broader perspective these

are signs of a much more widespread infiltration of Greek religious material culture and

practice into both Phoenician-Punic and indigenous groups. As Bondì has argued, “Il

fenomeno rientra peraltro nel quadro della progressive ellenizzazione dell’isola e dunque

riguarda forse più l’ambito della generale cultura che quello dei fenomeni religiosi

strettamente intesi.”850 Arguably we might say that the only time that we start to see

significant “colonial” inroads into indigenous Sardinian religion is after parts of it have

taken on some practices and elements of religious material culture that had become

widely recognized in other parts of the western Mediterranean and that in reality, had

mostly Greek origins.

In Sicily, Greek colonies largely continued in the same direction down which they

340

848 There are, of course, exceptions to this generalization. Oggiano (2005: 1035) notes that the similarites that the Sa Punta su’ Coloru sanctuary has with eastern counterparts could reflect a strategic move by the Nora population to reflect contemporary developments in sacred Phoenician architecture, particularly after the crisis of the Carthaginian conquest. Bondì (2003) also argues that the use of architectural forms flourishing in Phoenicia at the time could be seen as a move by the Nora citizen community to renew their eastern ties.849 Van Dommelen 1998: 153-55.850 Bondì 1987b: 202.

had started in the sixth century, particularly in regards to the extreme investment of funds

into temple-building and decoration: by 450 there were 49 temples across the three

different sites, and by the end of the fifth century there were 53. One notable change,

however, can be seen in the movable material record. The variance in the types of objects

in the sanctuary assemblage increased during this period, with a few sanctuaries showing

higher numbers of metal dedications, lead tablets, and votive stelai, and others

maintaining quite humble assemblages even while their architectural settings sometimes

became much more monumental. In Chapter 5 I argued that the first signs of this variance

in the sixth century was possibly due to the greater patronage of specific sanctuaries by

different groups. These groups, I argued, organized themselves around specific social

associations that co-existed with and, sometimes, ran counter to their identification with

the polis. Elite associations were probably very important, but other classifications, such

as gender or family, also seem to be important.

In many ways, I think that this idea-- that different social associations often had

greater ties to particular sanctuaries-- could help explain the explosion of sanctuary

building at Greek sites more fully. As I described in the previous section, most

interpretations of the “monumentalization” phase within the Greek colonies focus on how

monuments would project notions of communal solidarity to other, possibly aggresive,

cities. To consign all religious activity in the colonies to a collective representation of

polis solidarity, however, oversimplifies the evidence for the social makeup of colonial

poleis and does not breach the issue of why so many temples were built in quick

succession. To understand this, we have to realize that the projection of the collective city

was, in some ways, somewhat of a farce, a smoothing over of social differences in order

to resolve more immediate coordination problems, particularly in how to interact with

outsiders. In many ways, the developments of the fifth century show a hardening of social

boundaries that had previously been much more fluid. De Angelis argues that while

‘average’ private individuals and public treasuries potentially contributed to temple

construction at Selinus, it was “Selinous’ aristocrats, who had the financial resources and

competitive ethos to leave their mark on the city for posterity,” that were likely the ones

341

most involved in temple-building.851 Taking the number of temples into consideration,

this must imply not only a significant amount of competition between the indivdiuals

who could afford to put their money towards such projects, but an astronomical

difference between social strata. If De Angelis is correct that collectively, the projects

would have cost between 13 and 19 talents per year over the course of 90 years (550-460

BCE), then the elite class must have included a large number of individuals that were

able to bear the (extended) burden of payment or it must have been made up of

individuals who were excessively more wealthy than others.

Other patterns in the material record could be related to this growing definition

between groups within the Greek colonies as well. I mentioned earlier that the votive

assemblages seem to diverge at many of the sanctuaries, with some having much greater

numbers of finds in metals, inscribed items, or certain categories of terracotta objects. At

each site, there seems to be at least one sanctuary with high quantities of loomweights, an

object found far less frequently at other sites. It might be that because these temples or

sanctuaries were dedicated to different deities, they received different types of offerings.

But, the fact that this difference only becomes especially tangible in the fifth century

leads me to suspect that the distinctions have more to do with the people worshiping the

deity than the deity itself. Another category of religious material in which we can

distinguish a change is in facilities related to pollution-- wells, cisterns, water conduits,

basins, and springs. Their sudden increase in the fifth century points perhaps to both a

greater need for purification and a concern with keeping others who by their non-

membership in the group would pollute the sanctuaries. Concern with preventing

pollution is blatant in certain epigraphic and iconographic contexts as well, particularly at

Selinus.852 The text of the lex sacra, which is broadly dated between the end of the sixth

and middle of the fifth century BCE, has been thought to have been generally concerned

with pollution of certain individuals, and possibly pollution caused by murder.853 The text

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851 De Angelis 2003b: 169.852 Cf. Brugnone 1999.853 Jameson et al. 1993: 50-51. Marconi (2007: 207-209) connects the inscription’s associations with “vengeful gods” and murder to the ‘Orestes’ metope from Temple C and literary reports of political bloodshed at Selinus, arguing that the concerns with pollution and purification are more generally tied to political strife.

of one column also instructs groups of worshippers how to propitiate “vengeful” deities, a

group obviously connected with pollution and implying social strife as well.854

The presence of other smaller and more narrowly defined social groups does not,

of course, exclude identification with a larger parent organization. Individuals could have

multiple social identities, rotate them around, or put them aside when the moment called

for it. Certainly some levels of identification weighed more heavily than others, and the

solidarity offered by identification with the polis guarranteed the survival of other,

subsidiary forms, particularly in moments of stress that threatened the entire civic body,

regardless of which social group one felt more closely aligned with. Indeed, in many

ways, some components of Greek sanctuaries--monumental altars, large acropolis

sanctuaries with decorative schema depicting mythological origin stories, processional

routes and associations with public treasuries--seem expressly designed to prevent

anything but “communal --both religious and political-- activities, whose main purpose

was to reinforce among the participants a sense of identity and belonging.”

Outside of the Greek colonies, the fifth century marked a great turning point for

indigenous communities. Many older Sicilian strongholds and the religious areas they

had developed underwent complete destructions or were abandoned between 525 and 450

BCE, and remained so up into the fourth century BCE. Other indigenous settlements,

however, grew rapidly, intensifying worship in old sanctuaries and constructing huge and

elaborate others anew. Other religious developments include an increase in architectural

investment in religious buildings, more widespread use of Greek-style terracotta

decorations, the new use of cult statues, and the integration of writing as a form of votive

offering. Other ritual practices continued as well, but with some new tendencies, most

notably with the widespread dedication of terracotta female statuettes.

As I noted in Chapter 3, however, the religious activities of these sites are

overshadowed by the broader political and demographic changes of the times. In the

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854 As the editors of the lex sacra point out, this part of the inscription is especially significant for its specification of “groups” at Selinus, and groups that used religious activity as a material expression of their internal relationship, perhaps based on kinship ties. Kevin Clinton (1992: 162-63), in contrast, argues that absence of names for the groups makes it more likely that the inscription refers to public ritual and the group of the polis.

second half of the sixth century, there had been 46 different religious places in the case-

study area. By 500, some sites had already started to go out of use; by 450, there were 21

and by 400, only 15. What’s more is that most of these fifth-century religious areas come

from a handful of sites--Sabucina up until 450 BCE, Licata, Segesta, Monte Iato. So,

while there was an overall decrease in the number of religious places, the density of

religious areas increased at particular sites. These patterns in the religious material

correspond closely to the broader demography of the fifth century BCE in which many

indigenous settlements were abandoned while others expanded in population and became

truly wealthy cities. Stefano Vassallo has attributed the contraction in indigenous

settlement occupation in western Sicily to the loss of the Carthaginians at the Battle of

Himera, but since the eastern part of Sicily seems involved in a similar process, it seems

more likely that in the late sixth century and fifth century, certain cities became much

stronger than others, largely through concentrating population of smaller sites, either

through force or persuasion.855

Conclusions

The main objective of this dissertation was to try and understand the changes in

indigenous religious activity in the West Mediterranean in terms of how indigenous

societies responded to colonial religion and what that means for how we should

understand the impact of colonization more broadly. My conclusion begins with a very

general observation: indigenous societies responded to colonial religion and colonization

in very different ways. In Sardinia, the arrival of the Phoenicians seems to have spurred

major changes in nuragic social structure that had begun before the time of settlement;

while in Sicily, the settlement of new groups initiated upheavals in the political, social,

and cultural climate of indigenous communities, leading people to respond to new

pressures differently. The variation in religious practice that we see between indigenous

Sicilian sites, I believe, needs to not be seen as simply a reflection of either Hellenization,

Phoenicianization, native resistance or hybridization. Rather, they need to be seen as the

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855 Vassallo 2000.

articulation of competing social and community identities through religious practice.

Framed this way, the erection of hut shrines in Sicily that draw purposefully on Bronze

Age house forms; their dedications of bronzes and other relatively rare goods; and their

co-option of earlier Iron Age tomb rituals can perhaps be seen as the attempts of certain

groups to validate their claims of status and power in the face of the increasingly wider

economic and social opportunities that existed for everyone else. At the same time, other

Sicilian groups reached out for new forms of religious expression, drawing heavily on

religious rituals and architecture that we normally find in the sanctuaries of Greek poleis.

At a very basic level, the fact that indigenous societies came up with any form of

religious practice is probably at least partially explained by the fact that with colonization

came greater population density and more social complexity. The variability in the forms

of religious practice and architecture that did arise in the Archaic period is important,

however, and as I hope my overview has shown, the claims of both the old Hellenization

model and the postcolonial model are, to some extent, correct. On the one hand, part of

the evidence seems to insist on a postcolonial interpretation of cultural change as

hybridizing, slow to change, and resistant to dominant colonial forms; indigenous Sicilian

groups were looking backward, perhaps with nostalgia, at a pre-colonization period, and

coming up with means of religious worship that bridged the worlds of the past, the

present, and the unknown. On the other hand, other parts of the evidence support a

Hellenization-type interpretation of indigenous groups readily adopting Greek cultural

forms: certain settlements co-opted many forms of Greek religious expression, sometimes

in ways that seem even “Greekier” than what we see in the colonies themselves. And by

the end of the fifth century and then especially in the fourth century, certain forms of

religious architecture and material culture that had first been seen in the Greek colonies

had become so widespread and homogenous that they were present in sites where

colonists never had been and were being played with and manipulated to fit local ritual

needs.

The comparative approach I took in this dissertation allowed me to argue that we

can explain the appearance of new material culture and practices amongst indigenous

345

groups in Sicily and the lack of integration among Sardinian groups as the results of a

process of selective integration. These groups chose practices that worked for them and

ignored others, often manipulating the practices and material culture to work for their

purposes. The rituals that were most attractive to these groups, I believe, are those that

fostered communal identification and social cohesion, concepts that I have tried to show

were promoted more in the religious structure of the Greek colonies than that of the

Phoenician colonies. The erection of monumental temples or sacred areas was impossible

for an individual and, moreover, there are no clear distinctions in either the homes or

burials that obviate an indigenous “upper class” for many settlements. Animal sacrifice

flourished, and indigenous societies embraced the Greek practice of wine-drinking, but in

a way that challenged older power structures: drinking at indigenous settlements, a ritual

that we as scholars tend to associate very strictly with the elite sphere of Greek culture,

took place not in the closed world of the andrôn, but in the public context of the

sanctuary and involved a much wider community than what we see in Greece. For

indigenous communities in Sicily that were adapting to the very real-world demands

imposed by colonization, religion and religious ritual became a major platform for

debating the ways that the socio-political form of the community would take shape.

Retrospectively, the clear winners of this debate were the groups that were able to

consolidate this community identity and move forward. In Sardinia, this seems to be

pushed by the injection of Carthage into the affairs of the Phoenician and indigenous

settlements. Some Phoenician settlements seem to have become more firmly attached to

Carthage, such as Tharros and Karalis, and were able to thrive up through the Hellenistic

period. Indigenous settlements, however, were able to organize themselves enough to be

a nuisance to both Carthaginian and Roman incursions, but never concentrated enough

people or power to develop full city-states. In Sicily, the number of sanctuaries had

dropped off by the mid-fifth century, as part of wider and concurrent processes of

settlement abandonment and growth. A number of sites in central-western Sicily were

abandoned while others grew significantly in population, political power, and wealth.

346

Segesta became the equal of the Greek and Phoenician sites, and was able to exert

enough influence to persuade the Athenians to come to Sicily in 413/12 BC.

What we see in the West Mediterranean from the eighth through the fourth

century is thus a process of state formation and, in many ways, it resembles the processes

that were happening concurrently or slightly earlier in the Aegean. There, the appearance

of new sanctuaries in the eighth century is part and parcel of the development of Greek

poleis and ethnê, and the ebbs and flows in religious expression and context are the

physical utterances of an ongoing conversation about citizenship and community. I

believe that something very similar was happening in the western Mediterranean.

347

Appendices

Appendix 1. Vessels found in the Malophoros sanctuary (650-580 BCE), according to

form and broader vessel category.856

Broader vessel

category

Vessel Form No. of items Total items in

broader vessel

category

Oil/Perfume vessels Aryballoi/alabastra 654 745 (18%)Oil/Perfume vessels

Lekythoi/flasks/amphoriskoi 91

745 (18%)

Small storage vessels

(‘powder’?)

Pyxides 219 228 (5.5%)Small storage vessels

(‘powder’?) Lids 9

228 (5.5%)

Table wares/drinking

wares

Oinochoai/Olpai 361 974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)


wares Amphorae/Hydriae 15

974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)


wares

Kotylai/cups “Countless”

974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)


wares

Kraters/Dinoi 62

974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)


wares

Bowls/Plates 536

974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)

Possibly table wares or

more symbolic

Miniature kotylai/cups 1007

974 + MNI

1008 = 1982

(48.3%)

Possibly table wares or

more symbolic

Miniature kotylai/cups 1007

1007 (24.5%)

Ritually-significant Exaleiptra/Kothons 123 123 (3%)

Ritually-significant Phialai 15 15 (0.37%)

Unclear Other (stoppers, unknown objects) 3 3 (0.07%)

Total 4103

Appendix 2. Distribution of Gabrici’s finds in Malophoros sanctuary for Phase I

(650-580 BCE).

Period Ia

(c. 650-600 BCE)

Period Ia

(c. 650-600 BCE)

Period Ib

(c. 600-580/570 BCE)

Period Ib

(c. 600-580/570 BCE)

Period Ib

(c. 600-580/570 BCE)

Period Ib

(c. 600-580/570 BCE)

Finds Zone to the

west of the

altar

Area of altar

and hearths

Area of the

altar

Interior of

the ‘early

temenos’

‘Megaron’ Area outside

the tem.

Cups (generalized) “numerous” “numerous” “numerous”

listed 5x

? 0 0

“Vessels” 9 “numerous” “large

quantities”

listed 3x

18+ “rare

fragments”

“fragments”

Aryballoi/alabastra “numerous” 23 18 82 0 1

Covers 5 5+ 9 17 0 1

Pyxides 0 2 0 0 0 0

348

856 Archaeological descriptions of certain categories of finds as “countless” or “numerous” undermine quantitative analyses from being completely accurate. Based on the fact that other categories are itemized, however, we can extrapolate that the MNI of the “countless” category is at least greater than hte largest itemized class. For the Malophoros sanctuary, then, “countless” cups would be equal to at least 1008, i.e. one more than 1007, the number of the highest itemized category, miniature kotylai.

Cups (itemized) 7 49 12 147 0 2

Plates/bowls 3 7+ “numerous” 2+ 0 1

Hydriae/Amphorae 0 4 1 0 0 0

Kraters/Dinoi 0 0 5 0 0 0

Ollae/Oinochoai 0 2 “numerous” 2 0 0

Basins 1 4 0 0 0 1

Statuettes 7 8 14+ 39+ “some

fragments”

1

Non-human figurines 0 2 3 6 0 1

Non-ornamental

metals

3 4 1 (knife) 0 0 3

Ornamental objects 11+ 18 1 21+ 3

Weights “some” 42 0 “large

quantity”

“some” 0

Lamps “a certain

quantity”

2 1 “large

quantity”

“some” 50+

Other 2 (strainer,

arula)

1 (arula) 4 (3 arulae,

pedestal)

0

MNI of total objects 46+ 165+ Not

calculable

335+ 4+ 64+

Total objects for

each period

211+211+ Not Calculable, but at least 403Not Calculable, but at least 403Not Calculable, but at least 403Not Calculable, but at least 403

Appendix 3. Estimates of the minimal costs for the stone used in the construction of

religious buildings erected at Himera, Selinus, and Akragas between 650 and 406 BCE.Selinus650-600 BCE

• [Early version of Temple C (Acropolis): 46-53 talents]?• Tempietto con i piccoli spirali (Acropolis): 5.85 talents• [Early version of Temple E (Marinella): 46-53 talents]?

600-550 BCE• (1st) Malophoros megaron (Gaggera): 3.12 talents• Heraion (Gaggera): 7.14 talents• Temple M (Gaggera): 18.24 talents• Temple Y/Temple of the small metopes (Acropolis): 51-68 talents• Megaron (Acropolis): 6.16 talents

550-500 BCE• (2nd) Malophoros megaron (Gaggera): 16.08 talents• Stoa (Acropolis): 49.69 talents• Temple C (Acropolis): 135.6-180.8 talents• Temple D (Acropolis): 111.6-148.8 talents• Temple F (Marinella): 97.7-130.24 talents

[525-470 BCE]• Temple G: 567.12-756.16 talents

500-450 BCE• Temple A: 51-68 talents• Temple O: 51-68 talents

349

• Temple E: 184.8-246.4 talents• Hekate complex: ?• Propylaeum: 4.47-6.74: 1452.57-1885.42 = 7.26-9.43/year

Himera650-550 BCE

• Temple A: a minimum of 3-4 talents550-500 BCE

• Acropolis sanctuary (Temples B, D, and the altar): 30.85-31.5 talents.• Tamburino sanctuary: 21 talents,• North Quarter shrine: 3-4 talents• “Tempietto in antis”: 6-7 talents

500-450 BCE• Temple C and Victory temple: 200-250 talents

Akragas580-550 BCE

• Sanctuary of chthonic deities: 23 talents• Gate V sanctuary: 25.75 talents

550-500 BCE• Sant’Anna sanctuary: 12.92 talents• Santuario rupestre: 2.42 talents• San Nicola sanctuary: 12.72 talents• Colimbetra sanctuary: 3.12 talents• Addition of lesche to Gate V sanctuary: 6.16 talents• Additions to sanctuary of chthonic gods: 34 talents (some not completed)• Temple of Herakles: 150 talents• Villa Aurea shrine: 15-20 talents• Temple to Hephaistos: 6-7 talents

500-450 BCE• Temple to Demeter San Biagio: 26.1 talents• Temple of Athena: 30 talents?• Addition of fishpond to Colimbetra sanctuary: “expensive”• Additions to Gate V sanctuary: 6-7 talents

[480-406 BCE]• Temple to Olympian Zeus: 567.12-756.16 talents (i.e. comparable to Selinus’ Temple G)

450-400 BCE• Gate II sanctuary: 2.5 talents• Temple to Hephaistos: 97-130.24 talents• Temple to Asclepius: 22 talents• Temple to Hera: 51-68 talents• Temple to Concord: 51-68 talents

Appendix 4. Current descriptions of sacrificial remains from Greek sanctuaries at

Himera, Selinus, and Akragas.

Site Sanctuary/Altar Facilities Faunal evidence

Himera Acropolis/Monumental altar Numerous fragments of bones from “small animals,” mixed with ash found inside the altar; consistent traces of burning on altar

350

Site Sanctuary/Altar Facilities Faunal evidence

N. Quarter urban sanctuary/eschara and hearth

“bird bones, small quadrupeds” from the eschara and “animal bones” from the hearth

E. Quarter urban sanctuary/arulae, eschara, and remains of a small altar in Room 39

burnt and unburnt “animal bones”

Selinus Acropolis/Monumental altar in front of Temple C

No recovered evidenceSelinus

Acropolis/Monumental altar beside peribolos entrance

No recovered evidence

Selinus

Acropolis/Tempietto with spiral acroteri altar


Selinus

Temple M/Monumental altar No recovered evidence

Selinus

Altar to “Zeus Agoraios” (Hdt. V.56)


Selinus

Temple E/Monumental altar No recovered evidence

Selinus

Malophoros sanctuary/oval and rectangular altars

“astragals and bone fragments,” burnt sheep, bird, rodent bones found in various layers, but especially the lowest one.

Selinus

Meilichios sanctuary/deposits see discussion in text

Selinus

Heraion/hearth and internal altar burnt “animal bones” and three astragals

Akragas San Nicola Sancutary/well goat bonesAkragas

Sanctuary of chthonic gods/Enclosure 2, multiple altars

Goat, sheep, and piglet bones

Akragas

Sant’Anna Sanctuary “Faunal remains” and iron knife blades

351

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